Chapter 5 - Archaeological Delimination

Summary

THIS CHAPTER WILL to some extent repeat what has been said before, but as its aim is different and the question is crucial to our interpretation of the poem, this is unavoidable.

The archaeological references in Beowulf are often described in fairly general terms, and almost always for purposes other than my present one. A clearer archaeological picture will emerge if we note not only what specific material culture the poem represents, but also what elements are not known from Scandinavia and England during the period in which its events unfold.

Neck and Arm Rings

As we have already noted, a thread running through Beowulf is all the talk of rings and of princes who generously distribute them, or at least ought to do so. Rings are spoken of no fewer than forty-four times, in most cases as bēag or bēah,but also as hrinġ.In four cases at least, there are explicit references to neck rings.

Hilda Ellis Davidson has suggested that healsbēaga mǣst,“the greatest of neck rings,” which Queen Wealhtheow presents to Beowulf, is a reference to the brēostġewǣde mentioned a little later in the text, which in that case should be interpreted as a chest adornment rather than a mail shirt. Davidson is reminded of the large Swedish gold collars from the Migration Period, from Möne, Ålleberg, and Färjestad, made up of seven, five, and three gold rings respectively, covered with filigree (Pesch 2015a), and serving as large chest ornaments (Davidson 1980, 358). The suggestion is interesting, but the connection made is hardly incontrovertible.

Neck and arm rings occur in large numbers in Scandinavian finds from the late Roman and Migration periods. Significantly, they are only ever made from gold. Similarly, Beowulf makes no mention of any other metal than gold being used for rings.

Equally noteworthy is the fact that there is not a single definite find anywhere in the Nordic region of a true neck or arm ring of gold from the early Migration/VendelPeriod that followed, and hardly any of such rings made from any other metal either.

What, then, of the gold collars just mentioned? From the West Mound at Old Uppsala there is a small face mask of gold filigree that is almost identical to those on the collar from Möne in Västergötland (Pesch 2015b, 263, 283).