Both La Chanson de Roland and Beowulf are national epic poems whose heroes die in dramatic and memorable ways. Both are distinctly products of their religious setting, though those settings are different for each poem. Wyrd, an Anglo-Saxon word that gives us the Modern English word “Weird,” shows up several times in Beowulf. Metaphysical but not codified, wyrd as a world-view and philosophy affects how characters in Beowulf die. This is especially true compared to another national epic, The Song of Roland, which has a Christian philosophy.
What is The Song of Roland?
The Song of Roland is an epic French poem whose beauty and complexity rival that of a medieval tapestry. It sings of the story of the Battle of Roncevaux, an Islamic attack on King Charlemagne’s men and their subsequent heroic deeds. One of the oldest chansons de geste, a genre of medieval narrative poetry, the story of The Song of Roland is as magnificent a literary art form as any majestic tapestry.
Though it is a poetic legend, it originated in historical fact. The history of the event is clear: there was a battle between Charlemagne’s men and the Basque at a place near the Roncevaux pass bordering Spain and France. It is also widely accepted that one of Charlemagne’s knights, Roland, died while fighting. The characters and narrator also champion crusader Christianity, which values king, country, service to God, and martyrdom.
What is Beowulf?
Beowulf is Great Britain’s closest work of literature to a national epic poem. The plot centers around three monsters: Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and a dragon. The hero of the story, Beowulf, battles each monster. Grendel first attacks King Hrothgar’s hall, prompting him to call for aid. Thain Beowulf comes. He successfully kills Grendel, but then Grendel’s mother (who never gets another name) seeks vengeance. Beowulf then must fight her in her own fen underwater. Time passes. Beowulf becomes king of his own people. But they need him once more as a dragon awakens and starts ravaging the countryside. A yet hale old man, the dragon defeats him.
Religious Backgrounds: Wyrd and Medieval Christianity
What is Wyrd?
Most simply, wyrd means fate or a power beyond and over that of humankind’s normal agency. In Beowulf, the spiritual or supernatural concept of wyrd plays a significant role within the plot and characters’ minds. The first two instances of wyrd occur relatively early in the story: during Beowulf’s greeting to Hrothgar, he states that “Gæð a wyrd swa hio scel” — “Fate goes ever on as fate must” (455). In the same conversation, Hrothgar recounts how “hie wyrd forsweop / on Grendles gryre. God eaþe mæg / þone dolsaðan dæda getwæfan!” — “Fate drove us into Grendel’s violence. God may yet stop the evil-enemy’s deeds!” (477-479).
Hrothgar blames wyrd for the terrors Grendel has wreaked on his people. One scholar describes wyrd as “a blind and whimsical force whose dealings with men are unrelated to their merit” (Tietjen, 1975). Another scholar writes that “In the pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon mythology, the term denoted a force in the universe which controlled the destinies of all things[.] It compels even the gods to act in accord with its dictates” (Kasik, 1979).
Connected to Celtic paganism, wyrd is a supernatural concept in opposition to that of strictly orthodox Christianity. While Beowulf also contains many references to the Lord God, this article focuses on the undercurrent of wyrd in the story and how it affects characters.
Elements of Medieval Christianity
In order to understand how philosophical and religious differences affect these texts, it is first important to understand the differences in the two texts’ settings and their relationship to religion. In the introduction to her translation of Roland, Dorothy Sayers argues that “[Roland] is not merely Christian in subject; it is Christian to its very bones. Nowhere does the substratum of an older faith break through the Christian surface.”
It is of course also important to take into account the fact that Roland irrefutably depicts the struggles of a holy war. Even in the midst of carnage and grief, the text reminds the characters (and by extension, the readers) what they are fighting for. Roland scholar, Gerard Brault, explains that: “[w]hen Roland says the French must be prepared to suffer everything in the King’s name, he means literally that the Christians must be willing to face death in God’s name. Charles’s cause is God’s cause and the Spanish campaign is a holy war.”
Most of the evidence points to the La Chanson manuscript being copied as early as 1066 (Russell 1952), which is significant historically because that was not long before the First Crusade. Internally and externally, the setting for Roland is that of a righteous war enacted in God’s name against infidels. Furthermore, martyrdom is a distinct theme of Roland. When Archbishop Turpin exhorts his men to combat, he declares, “If you should die, you will become holy martyrs.”
When Heroes Die
Roland’s Death
Unlike some heroes who are always untouchable, or like Beowulf who lives into old age, Roland dies in a terrible and memorable way. Stretched out over multiple stanzas, Roland’s death scene slows the narrative to a respectful, almost contemplative pace. Far after the point, it would be useful, he finally sounds the call for help “with great pain and grief” (134), while “Brilliant blood shoots from his mouth, / His brain has burst out from his forehead” (134). His brain gushes from his head, and still, he continues to fight (156).
At last, he dies gently, “Clasping his hands together at the very end” (176), in an image akin to that of prayer. Roland is able to ask forgiveness for his sins once more before dying, confessing: “God, forgive me for all I have committed against you” (175). After Roland prays and offers his gauntlet to God (174), “Heavenly angels descend to / retrieve his soul and carry it to Paradise” (174, 176). After all that Roland has suffered, the text makes it clear that “God holds his soul in heaven” (177), providing a reassuring conclusion to his pain.
Roland scholar Marianne Ailes comments that: “This is, in medieval terms, an ideal death. Roland dies as a martyr, obeying God and serving his lord. Dying from the bursting of his temples in blowing the horn, he alone [of the Frankish knights] does not die at the hands of the Saracens, but rather in sublime self-sacrifice.”
Roland’s physical torture is not in vain, since he sacrifices himself for Charlemagne and for God. He has a hero’s end, with a superhuman continuation of battle even after his grievous wounds. His death becomes almost triumphant as angels usher his soul off the battlefield and directly into Heaven, becoming a proper martyr. There is no doubt as to where Roland’s soul goes after he dies, and even though the French have mourned his earthly death, they also trust that he is in Heaven.
Beowulf’s Death
Neither a martyr nor acting in the full religious security of God, Beowulf dies differently. After ruling his people successfully (as far as we know, since there is a lacuna in the account of his kingdom), Beowulf must face his bane in the form of an eorðdraca [earth dragon]. Though he makes a brave stand, the dragon grievously wounds him and the narrator records that “him wyrd ne gescraf / hreð æt hilde” — “fate did not grant him victory” (2574-2575) against the dragon.
In a touching scene, he bids farewell to faithful companion, Wiglaf, saying: “ealle wyrd forsweop / mine magas to metodsceafte / eorlas on elne; ic him æfter sceal” — “Fate drove all my people, bright noble lords, to their doom; now I shall follow” (2814-2816). He blames wyrd for destroying his people (2814) and the narrator makes it clear also that wyrd did not grant him victory (2575) during his last battle. Tietjen comments that wyrd is almost always connected with death (162), and Beowulf’s passing into the halls of his forebears shows this clearly. The incorporation of the unknowability of wyrd contributes to Beowulf dying ultimately in uncertainty, and so the Geats have good cause to elegize him.
On the other hand, even though the French army had a lot to mourn, it was God Himself who commanded Charlemagne. And as the Holy Roman Emperor, he holds certain jurisdictions. For instance, after he returns to help Roland (though too late), “The emperor carried out his justice” (291), which implies that part of the purpose of Charlemagne’s battles was to mete (Godly) justice, but also that it has been accomplished. This authority ultimately comforts the French with the surety of God’s grace and final justice, even though their hero is dead.
It is exactly this surety that both Beowulf’s people and Beowulf himself lack. Just as Roland’s exploits leave France more exposed, as Beowulf, the leader of his people dies, he leaves his people bereft of protection. Coming out of the dragon’s den, even as he laments Beowulf, Wiglaf scolds the warriors who abandoned Beowulf, saying that:
“Now shall the treasure-giving and sword-gifting, and all the homeland joy of your families, cease; each of you land-holding men will become desolate, since foreign lords will learn of how you fled, acting without honor.” (2884-2890)
He brutally reminds the deserters of the position Beowulf’s death leaves them in — a laughing stock among the nations and open for attacks by a circumspect prince abroad.
Similarly, in a gritty scene of mourning at Beowulf’s funeral:
“Thus was the lament of a Geatish maiden, hair bound back, singing sorrowfully, wailing her terror for the dread in days to come, for so many slaughtered, the horror of host-troops, shame and slavery.” (3150-3155)
Their king has died with no heir. They fear future invasions. The people lament their king’s death not only out of their own grief but also for the unknown tragedies that may ensue.
Exactly unlike how Heaven opens up to receive Roland, after the Geat woman’s keening, the text just says that “Heofon rece swealg” — “heaven swallow[s] the smoke” (3155) of Beowulf’s funeral pyre. Now during their dire need, all that is said is that Heaven dispassionately observes the suffering of mankind, creating ambiguity about Beowulf’s soul’s fate.
By the end of the story, Beowulf’s audience is left unsure about cosmic or divine security. Furthermore, wyrd is still present within the text and the imagination of at least the characters if not specifically the audience. Foreshadowing Grendel’s mother’s attack on Heorot, the narrator comments that the sleeping thanes “Wyrd ne cuþon” — “knew not their fate” (1233), but ultimately, none of the characters do and nor do the Beowulf-poet’s audience.
Their heroes die, and only Roland’s people can be sure that he has gone to heaven. Beowulf’s Geats have no hope for either his soul or themselves. The Christian elements of Roland bring its own kind of comfort during the death of its main hero. Whereas in Beowulf, due to the overshadowing and sometimes cruel power of wyrd, neither the character nor his people have comfort at the end. At the mercy of wyrd, the Beowulf poet lets the listeners learn that indeed, “Gæð a wyrd swa hio scel” — “Fate goes ever on as fate must” (455) just as Beowulf himself had declared.
Bibliography
Ailes, Marianne J. The Song of Roland: On Absolutes and Relative Values, The Edwin Mellen Press, 2002.
Brault, Gerard J. “The Song of Roland: An Analytical Edition,” Penn State University Press, University Park and London, 1978.
Kasik, Jon. “The Use of the Term Wyrd in Beowulf and the Conversion of the Anglo-Saxons.” Neophilologus. vol. 63. 1979. pp. 128-13
Klaeber’s Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, edited by R.D. Fulk, Robert E. Bjork, and John D. Niles, Fourth ed., University of Toronto Press, 2008.
Morris, David B, “About Suffering: Voice, Genre, and Moral Community,” Daedalus, vol. 125, no. 1, 1996, pp. 25–45. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20027352.
Russell, J. C. “The ‘Chanson De Roland’: Written in Spain in 1093?” Studies in Philology, vol. 49, no. 1, 1952, pp. 17–24. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4173001.
Tietjen, Mary C. Wilson. “God, Fate, and the Hero of ‘Beowulf.’” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, vol. 74, no. 2, University of Illinois Press, 1975, pp. 159–71, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27707876.
The Song of Roland. Translated by Dorothy Sayers, Penguin Classics, 1982.
Williams, Rowan, The Tragic Imagination: The Literary Agenda, Oxford University Press. New York. 2016.
