Dragons and the Mist
By Jennifer Freely
In the section of Beowulf entitled 'Beowulf and the Dragon,' the backdrop is set for Beowulf�s last fight. The fight is to be against a dragon or �the ancient night ravager.�(p.38) At first glance, the dragon merely seems to be the next the enemy our hero must defeat. In actuality the dragon represents, in effect, the pagan culture, which is going beyond this world.
The dragon has been asleep for three hundred years, or winters (as text puts it), before he awakes to bring terror and destruction upon the villagers. He is not looking for a fight, but the slave who has trespassed into his lair has stolen a cup from him. This action makes the dragon fierce for vengeance, and in retaliation, he then lashes out at all mortals. Not until the dragon destroys Beowulf�s own home does Beowulf understand the full power and danger of the dragon. It is then that Beowulf fixes his course to destroy "the worm" (an Anglo- Saxon term for dragons). However, in this action, he knows that this battle will be his last.
In the end, both Beowulf and the dragon are killed, and these icons of the Anglo- Saxon culture meet their end. As the Beowulf text puts it, �The prince good from old times was to come to the end of the days that had been lent him, life in the world, and the worm with him, though he had long held the hoarded wealth.�(p.39) The idea that fate is fixed is a very Anglo- Saxon concept that many people still believe in today. This idea that we are only allowed a certain amount of time on this earth can also be applied to whole cultures and civilizations as well. Every civilization has its birth, its Golden Age, and then its end or demise. Cultures do not die so much as they pass into the mist of the past, like a curtain being lowered at the end of the Anglo- Saxon world.
Inserted into the scene is the story of how the treasure has come into the dragon�s possession. This story tells of an ancient tribe who store their wealth away in this place. The people of this culture are gone now, and the Last Survivor or �the keeper of the rings�(p.38), as text calls him, gives a final testament to his world:
'Hold now, you earth, not that men may not, the possession of earls.
What, from you good men got it first!
War-death has taken each man of my people,
evil dreadful and deadly, each of those who has given up this life,
the hall-joys of men.'(p.38)
This passage tells us that though their time has ended and a new one has begun, what they have left behind stands as a reminder of who and what these people once were. It is sad they are gone from this world, but time marches on, and we go forward. Remembering the past, this section of the story is paying homage to that past, while at the same time it lets the reader know that the time of Beowulf and dragons is also at an end and soon a new culture will arise. However, it is important to note that the newer age respects the older one, for if they did not, they would have been robbed of ever knowing the tale of Beowulf and his courageous Geats. Some unknown monks probably wrote down these early medieval works of literature, and though the Anlgo- Saxon texts do possess Christian undertones, they still give a clear picture of what kind of world Beowulf's and the Wanderer's must have been.
Our world is constantly in motion with continual change, and all too quickly our civilization will pass into the mists of time and give rise to another. It is important to remember all that has come before breeds creativity and sparks the imagination. We should not rush our time nor fight for more than what has been lent to us. It is simply not fair. As J.R.R. Tolkien wrote, Beowulf is an elegy, a sweet lament for the dead and �it must ever call with a profound appeal until the dragon comes�(p.113).
Work Cited
Howe, Nicholas. Beowulf: A Prose Translation. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002.
Tolkien, J.R.R."Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics." In Joseph F. Tuso Ed. Beowulf: The Donaldson Translation Backgrounds and Sources Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1990.
Image borrowed from http://www.draconian.com on 12 March 2002.