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Cain's monstrous progeny in Beowulf: part II, post-diluvian survival

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Ruth Mellinkoff
Ruth Mellinkoff
Affiliation:
The University of California, Los Angeles
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Extract

In part I of this study I concluded that some of the most unusual characteristics of Grendel and his mother (and their ambience) bear a striking likeness to, and may derive from, concepts of a race of cannibalistic giants descended from Cain in an ancient Jewish pseudepigraphical Noah book or (if, as some think, there was no Noah book) pseudepigraphical traditions designated as Noachic. I now take up the second question posed at the beginning of my part I, namely, what knowledge that such a race (or races) survived the Flood is the poet likely to have had? It is a real question, for, after all, if all mankind and all living creatures – except the prescribed Noah contingent – were destroyed by the Flood (Genesis vi and vii), without some authority the Beowulf poet would not have come to the belief that some of Cain's evil progeny had survived. We should not doubt the reality of that belief. For one thing, we can be confident that he believed in the physical actuality of monsters. They formed part of the repertoire of medieval belief, especially evident (though not exclusively so) when mystical–popular–folkloristic impulses asserted themselves. In the Middle Ages monsters were not regarded as imagined fictions, nor understood as spiritual–metaphorical symbols. Secondly, to suggest that in deriving his monsters from Cain the Beowulf poet was ‘merely employing a metaphor for the society of reprobates’ and that ‘it is unlikely that Grendel was identified with the race of Cain with any save figurative intent’ is surely inadequate. The narrator's two statements about the line of descent from Cain to Grendel and his mother are neither vague nor obliquely hinted; on the contrary, they are markedly definite.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 9 , December 1980 , pp. 183 - 197
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

1 ASE 8 (1979), 143–62Google Scholar.

2 Grateful thanks are due to Stanley Greenfield, Peter Clemoes, George Brown, Peter Brown, John Leyerle, Morton Bloomfield, Fred Robinson and Daniel Melia for their generous help. I, of course, accept full responsibility for all errors of fact, interpretation and judgement.

3 My biblical references are to the Douai translation of the Vulgate, unless otherwise noted.

4 See Clemoes, Peter, ‘Action in Beowulf and our Perception of It’, Old English Poetry: Essays on Style, ed. Calder, Daniel G. (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1979), pp. 155–6Google Scholar.

5 Hamilton, Marie Padgett, ‘The Religious Principle in Beowulf’, PMLA 61 (1946), 316 and 320CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 MS cames altered to caines by erasure; see below, n. 69. My quotations from Beowulf are from Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, ed. Fr. Kiaeber, 3rd ed. (Boston, Mass., 1950).Google Scholar

7 ‘From that source evil broods all arose, giants and elves and monsters, likewise giants who fought against God for a long time; he gave them a reward for that.’

8 ‘From that source arose many fated spirits; Grendel was one of those.’

9 Bandy, Stephen C., ‘Cain, Grendel, and the Giants of Beowulf’, Papers on Lang. and Lit. 9 (1973), 240Google Scholar. I am indebted to Henry A. Kelly for bringing this article to my attention. See also my part I, ASE 8, 149–50, where the giantism of the monster pair is discussed, and Kaske, R. E., ‘The Eotenas in Beowulf’, Old English Poetry, ed. Creed, Robert P. (Providence, R.I., 1967), pp. 285–310Google Scholar.

10 ‘…after the Flood, a pouring sea, killed the race of giants, they suffered terribly; that was a people estranged from the eternal Lord; the Ruler gave them a final reward for that through the surging of water’.

11 Pseudo-Justin, Quaestiones et Responsiones ad Orthodoxos, Migne, Patrologia Graeco-Latina 6, col. 1282. See Quasten, Johannes, Patrology (1st ed., 1950; repr., Utrecht and Antwerp, 1966) 1, 206Google Scholar, where it is stated that until now it has been impossible to discover the real author of these writings but that he ‘seems to have lived about 400, and to have had relations with Syria’.

12 See Allen, Don Cameron, The Legend of Noah (Urbana, Ill., 1963), pp. 76–9Google Scholar.

13 Translation from Bowker, John, The Targums and Rabbinic Literature (Cambridge, England, 1969CrossRefGoogle Scholar), app. I (‘The Biblical Antiquities of Philo: a Translation of the Passages related to Genesis, vii:4’), p. 309; for Bowker's discussion of pseudo-Philo, see pp. 30–1.

14 Henceforth referred to as Midrash Rabbah. This early midrash is described by Bowker thus: ‘a diverse compilation, but basically it appears to be a Palestinian work of the fifth century (though drawing, of course, on earlier ‘material)’ (The Targums, p. 79).

15 The Midrash Rabbah, ed. and trans. H. Freedman and Maurice Simon, 10 vols. (London, 1939) (Bereshith xxxiii.6) 1, 266.Google Scholar

16 For a discussion, see Bowker, , The Targums, pp. 26–8Google Scholar; and see McNamara, Martin, The New Testament and the Palestinian Targum to Pentateuch (Rome, 1966), pp. 60–3.Google Scholar

17 Bowker, , The Targums, p. 167.Google Scholar

18 The Midrash Rabbah (Bereshith xxxiii.6) 1, 266.

19 Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer (The Chapters of Rabbi Eliezer the Great), introd. and trans. Gerald Friedlander (1st ed., 1916; repr., New York, 1970), p. 168Google Scholar. The final redaction of this text has been dated to the second or third decade of the ninth century (Ibid. pp. liii-liv); and, for a discussion of this text, see Bowker, , The Targums, p. 85.Google Scholar

20 The Midrash Rabbah (Bereshith xxxii.10) 1, 255. See also Bowker, The Targums, p. 170, n. a, where is reported the repetition of this tall tale as late as the Yalkut of the thirteenth century.

21 Talmud throughout this study means the Babylonian Talmud.

22 The phrase ‘dry land’ does not appear in the Vulgate. This reference is from an English translation of the Hebrew; see The Holy Scriptures (according to the Masoretic Text), a New Translation (Philadelphia, 1917Google Scholar). It is interesting to note that, although the phrase ‘dry land’ was eliminated from the Vulgate (perhaps with conscious effort by Jerome), it appeared in the Septuagint and is reinstated in the King James. I have made no effort to trace its comings and goings, although its disappearance from the Vulgate might in itself be a fascinating problem to resolve.

23 The Babylonian Talmud, ed. and trans. Isidore Epstein and Maurice Simon, 18 vol. ed. (London, 1961Google Scholar), Seder Kodashim 1, 557 (Zabahim 113a).

24 Ibid. Seder Kodashim 1, 559 (Zebahim 113b).

25 Ibid.

26 The Midrash Rabbah (Bereshith xxxii.ii) 1, 256.

27 The Babylonian Talmud, Seder Kodashim 1, 559–60 (Zebahim 113b). The Talmud commentator suggests that if one believes that Israel was spared this would indeed be a fine explanation for the survival of the re'em which could have stayed in the saved land. But, he queries, what about the survival of the re'em if one takes the opposite view - that the Flood did descend into Israel? The response provides a superb demonstration of the incredible fables that easily arose among those who yearned for that something extra or hidden: it explains that the sea re'em was huge; at one day old it was thought to be as big as Mount Tabor - so gigantic that it cast a ball of excrements that blocked the Jordan. One talmudic opinion suggested that they took only the re'em's head into the ark; another said no, they took only the tip of its nose into the ark; and yet another suggested that they secured it by tying its horns to the ark.

28 Og, as well as his brother, Sihon, are the giants of Deuteronomy 11 and 111, where they are described as members of a race of giants.

29 The Babylonian Talmud, Seder Kodashim 1, 560 (Zebahim 113b).

30 For a summary of legends about Sihon and Og, see Encyclopedia Judaica (Jerusalem, 1971Google Scholar), sub Og.

31 Bowker, , The Targums, p. 193Google Scholar, and see his comments at 194–5.

32 Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, p. 167.

33 Ibid. pp. 111–12.

34 E.g., in the Talmud; see The Babylonian Talmud, Seder Zera'im, p. 331 (Berakoth 54b): ‘“The stone which Og, king of Bashan, wanted to throw at Israel.” This has been handed down by tradition. He said: How large is the camp of Israel? Three parasangs. I will go and uproot a mountain of the size of three parasangs and cast it upon them and kill them. He went and uprooted a mountain of the size of three parasangs and carried it on his head. But the Holy One, blessed be He, sent ants which bored a hole in it, so that it sank around his neck. He tried to pull it off, but his teeth projected on each side, and he could not pull it off. This is referred to in the text, Thou hast broken the teeth of the wicked, as explained by R. Simeon b. Lakish. For R. Simeon b. Lakish said: What is the meaning of the text, Thou has broken the teeth of the wicked? Do not read, shibbarta [Thou hast broken], but shirbabta [Thou hast lengthened]. The height of Moses was ten cubits. He took an axe ten cubits long, leapt ten cubits into the air, and struck him on his ankle and killed him.’

35 Allen, , The Legend of Noah, pp. 75–6.Google Scholar

36 Some of the legendary Og material appears in Muslim tradition; see Chronique de Tabari, trans. M. Hermann Zotenberg (Paris, 1958) 1, 388–92Google Scholar; see also Sidersky, D., Les Origines des légendes musulmanes dans le Coran et dans les vies des prophètes (Paris, 1933), pp. 100–2.Google Scholar

37 The Histories of Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais, trans. J. M. Cohen (Harmondsworth, 1955), pp. 173–4.Google Scholar

38 ASE 8, 147–8.

39 The Babylonian Talmud, Seder Tohoroth, p. 433 (Niddah 61a); Shamhazai, as pointed out by the editor, in n. 7, was ‘one of the fallen angels referred to in Genesis vi, 2, 4, as “sons of God” or “Nephilim”’.

40 See the excellent account by Gershom, Scholem, Encyclopedia Judaica, sub Zobar; see also his Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (3rd ed., 1954; repr., New York, 1960), pp. 156–204.Google Scholar

41 References throughout this study are to the English translation of the Zohar. See The Zohar, trans. Harry Sperling and Maurice Simon, 5 vols. (1st ed., 1934; repr. London, Jerusalem and New York, 1973) (Zohar 1.28b) 1, 109.Google Scholar

42 Ibid. (Zohar 1.25a) 1, 98–9.

43 Ibid.

44 In a future study I shall discuss the legends and traditions surrounding beliefs that the devil (serpent) had sexual intercourse with Eve.

45 The Zohar (Zohar 1.28a) 1, 108.

46 Ibid. (Zohar 1.37a) 1, 138.

47 Ibid. (Zohar 1.28a) 1, 108.

48 Ibid. (Zohar 1.36b) 1, 137.

49 Ibid. (Zohar 1.54a) 1, 172.

50 Ibid.

51 See above, n. 40.

52 The Midrash Kabbah (Bereshith xxiii.3) 1, 194.

53 See The Pentateuch and Rashi's Commentary, trans. Abraham Ben Isaiah and Benjamin Sharfman (Brooklyn, 1949), p. 45Google Scholar; or see Pentateuch with Targum Onkelos, Haphtaroth and Rashi's Commentary, trans. and ed. M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann (New York, 1935) 1, 20.Google Scholar

54 See Bamberger, Bernard J., Fallen Angels (Philadelphia, 1952), p. 171.Google Scholar

55 The Zohar (Zohar 1.55a) 1, 175; see also the comments by Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews (1st ed., 1925; repr., Philadelphia, 1947) v, 147–8Google Scholar, n. 45, and see Bamberger, , Fallen Angels, p. 171.Google Scholar

56 Utley, Francis Lee, ‘The One Hundred and Three Names of Noah's Wife’, Speculum 46 (1941), 445.Google Scholar

57 Ibid.

58 For her negative status in Muslim tradition, see Speyer, Heinrich, Die Biblischen Erzählungen im Qoran (Hildesheim, 1961), p. 108Google Scholar, and see Chronique de Tabari 1, 106–9; see also Utley's comments, ‘Names of Noah's Wife’, pp. 449–50. Her ambiguous status and other aspects of her character, as well as her strange names, have been discussed by Gollancz, Israel, The Caedmon Manuscript (Oxford, 1927), pp. lxiii–lxviiGoogle Scholar. I am indebted to Fred Robinson for calling this last reference to my attention. See also Garvin, Katherine, ‘A Note on Noah's Wife’, Mod. Lang. Notes 49 (1934), 88–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Mill, Ann J., ‘Noah's Wife Again’, PMLA 56 (1941), 613–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

59 See the discussion on Noah's wife as a shrewish, stubborn and disobedient woman by Woolf, Rosemary, The English Mystery Plays (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1972), pp. 136–44Google Scholar; and see Hirshberg, Jeffrey Alan, ‘Noah's Wife on the Medieval English Stage: Iconographic and Dramatic Values of her Distaff and Choice of the Raven’, Stud. in Iconography 2 (1976), 25–40.Google Scholar

60 Utley, ‘Names of Noah's Wife’, p. 450.

61 Encyclopaedia of Islam (Leiden, 1934Google Scholar) iv, sub Sām. I am indebted to Larry Berman who checked this further and indeed found the genealogy of the daughters-in-law of Noah carefully traced back to Cain in al-Tabari, Annales, Prima Series, ed. J. Barth (Leiden, 1964; photographic repr. of orig. ed.) 1, 211–13.Google Scholar

62 See Comfort, William Wilson, ‘The Literary Role of the Saracens in the French Epic’, PMLA 55 (1940), 629 and 652CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also Jones, C. Meredith, ‘The Conventional Saracen of the Songs of Geste’, Speculum 17 (1942), 204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

63 Comfort, ‘Role of the Saracens’, p. 651.

64 Ywain and Gawain, ed. Albert B. Friedman and Norman T. Harrington, EETS o.s. 254 (London, 1964), 16Google Scholar (line 559).

65 Ywain and Gawain, pp. 116–17 (n. to line 559).

66 E.g., in the poem, ‘The Orders of Cain’, Historical Poems of the XIVth and XVth Centuries, ed. Russell Hope Robbins (New York, 1959), pp. 157–62Google Scholar. It was a favourite epithet of Wyclif's which he used to attack and defame the friars, e.g. in ‘De Officio Pastorali’, The English Works of Wyclif, ed. F. D. Matthews, EETS o.s. 74 (London, 1880), 420Google Scholar, where he refers to their living quarters as ‘cayms castel’.

67 The Horned Moses in Medieval Art and Thought (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1970).Google Scholar

68 This translation is by Hogan, Edmund, The Irish Nennius from L. na Huidre, R. Irish Acad. Todd Lecture Ser. 6 (Dublin, 1895), 7–8Google Scholar. Hogan, however, had incorrectly identified this text; it is part of the Sex Aetates Mundi. See Lebor na Huidre, ed. R. I. Best and Osborn Bergin (Dublin, 1929), p. xxviiGoogle Scholar, and, for the text itself, p. 5. James Carney's attempt to explain the account of the descent of the monsters in this text as the result of two contradictory accounts of the origin of monsters (Studies in Irish Literature and History (Dublin, 1955), pp. 102–14Google Scholar) is not convincing; moreover it suggests a higher degree of logic and rationality than is likely. For additional bibliographical references on the Sex Aetates Mundi, see McNamara, Martin, The Apocrypha in the Irish Church (Dublin, 1975), pp. 30–2.Google Scholar

Charles Donahue has argued that early Irish Christians and many later ones ‘viewed with equanimity antediluvians who survived outside the ark’ and would not have been troubled by the idea that Cain was the ancestor of monsters; see his ‘Grendel and the Clanna Cain’, Jnl of Celtic Stud. 1 (1950), 172–4.Google Scholar

I am indebted to Daniel Melia for help on this whole problem. Professor Melia passed on to me the following passage of a letter to him from John Kelleher (August 1977), succinctly summing the matter up:

I suspect that Donahue is right when he says (p. 172) that ‘Dublittir and his predecessor, the anonymous author of ST, seem indeed to have been cranks on the subject of the Flood, members of a minority of historical rigorists, whose theory never wholly imposed itself in Ireland.’ I wouldn't say they were cranks. They were just bothered by the illogicality of monsters and oddities descended from Cain surviving the Flood – since it was manifest to everybody who knew Lebor Gabála or the story of Fergus mac Leide or indeed any number of other texts that Formoire and Lucrupain and all sorts of torotbor were around long after the Flood – so they developed (one hesitates to say, invented) the Cham connection and coarbship. In that case I would say that amal adfiadat na Goedil is basically an expression of disapproval of the inaccurate popular history circulating in Ireland. It would mean ‘the common sort’, or ‘the plain people of Ireland’, or ‘the unlearned’, or ‘those thick harps’.

69 Scholars, such as Oliver Emerson, F. (‘The Legends of Cain, especially in Old and Middle English’, PMLA 21 (1906), 925CrossRefGoogle Scholar), have noted and commented on the fact that Cain's name is spelled cam(es) (107a) and camp (1261b) in the Beowulf manuscript – a possible confusion with Ham. Yet there is no uncertainty as to the identity of the person alluded to, since context certifies that it is Cain.

70 Lebor Gabála Érenn, ed. and trans. R. A. Stewart Macalister (Dublin, 1938), pt 1, pp. 137 and 245Google Scholar n. to line 81).

71 For the mixture and mix-up of the Cain and Ham traditions, see Utley, Francis Lee, ‘The Prose Salomon and Saturn and the Tree called Chy’, MS 19 (1957). 62.Google Scholar

72 Migne, Patrologia Latina 100, col. 526.

73 ASE 8, 147.

74 ‘Legends of Cain’, p. 925.

75 See my discussion, ASE 8, 147 and n. 3.

76 Libri Quatuor in Principium Genesis 11, ed. Charles W. Jones, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 1 18A, 100–1.

77 PL 107, col. 512.

78 Only recently has policy begun to change, as, for example, reported on the front page of The New York Times, 10 June 1978, by Kenneth A. Briggs: ‘The 148-year-old policy of excluding black men from the Mormon priesthood was struck down by the church's leaders yesterday.’

79 Publ. by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1976 (first issued, as divided into chapters and verses with references by James E. Talmage, 1902).

80 Mormon Doctrine (Salt Lake City, Utah, 1966).Google Scholar

81 Mormonism and the Negro (Orem, Utah, 1960).Google Scholar

82 The Church and the Negro (n.p., 1967). Wayland Hand has called my attention to the fact that there is evidence of this belief among some people in N. Carolina; see Popular Beliefs and Superstitions from North Carolina, ed. Hand, Wayland D., The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, gen. ed. Newman Ivey White (Durham, N.C., 1961) vi, 97Google Scholar (no. 635): ‘Many preachers believe the Negro is the descendant of Cain and a gorilla out of the Land of Nod.’