The Beasts of battle is a poetic trope in

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

and

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

literature. The trope has the

wolf The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the grey wolf or gray wolf, is a Canis, canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus, subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, includin ...

, the

raven A raven is any of several large-bodied passerine bird species in the genus '' Corvus''. These species do not form a single taxonomic group within the genus. There is no consistent distinction between crows and ravens; the two names are assigne ...

, and the

eagle Eagle is the common name for the golden eagle, bald eagle, and other birds of prey in the family of the Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of Genus, genera, some of which are closely related. True eagles comprise the genus ''Aquila ( ...

follow warriors into battle to feast on the bodies of the slain. It occurs in eight Old English poems and in the Old Norse

Poetic Edda The ''Poetic Edda'' is the modern name for an untitled collection of Old Norse anonymous narrative poems in alliterative verse. It is distinct from the closely related ''Prose Edda'', although both works are seminal to the study of Old Norse ...

History of the term

The term originates with

Francis Peabody Magoun Francis Peabody Magoun Jr. MC (6 January 1895 – 5 June 1979) was one of the seminal figures in the study of medieval and English literature in the 20th century, a scholar of subjects as varied as soccer and ancient Germanic naming practic ...

, who first used it in 1955, although the combination of the three animals was first considered a theme by

Maurice Bowra Sir Cecil Maurice Bowra, (; 8 April 1898 – 4 July 1971) was an English classical scholar, literary critic and academic, known for his wit. He was Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, from 1938 to 1970, and served as vice-chancellor of the Univer ...

, in 1952.

History, content

The beasts of battle presumably date from an earlier, Germanic tradition; the animals are well known for eating carrion. A mythological connection may be presumed as well, though it is clear that at the time that the Old English manuscripts were produced, in a Christianized England, there was no connection between for instance the raven and

Huginn and Muninn In Norse mythology, Huginn and Muninn ( or ; roughly "mind and will" – ''see '') are a pair of common raven, ravens that serve under the god Odin and fly all over the world, Midgard, and bring information to the god Odin. Huginn and Muninn are ...

or the wolf and

Geri and Freki In Norse mythology, Geri and Freki are two Eurasian wolf, wolves which are said to accompany the god Odin. They are attested in the ''Poetic Edda'', a collection of epic poetry compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, in th ...

. This mythological and/or religious connection survived for much longer in Scandinavia. Their literary pedigree is unknown. John D. Niles points out that they possibly originate in the wolf and the raven as animals sacred to Wōden; their role as eaters of the fallen victims certainly, he says, accords with the fondness of Old English poets for

litotes In rhetoric, litotes (, ), also known classically as antenantiosis or moderatour, is a figures of speech, figure of speech and form of irony in which understatement is used to emphasize a point by stating a negative to further affirm a positive, o ...

, or deliberate understatement, giving "ironic expression to the horror of warfare as seen from the side of the losers."Niles 133. While the beasts have no connection to pagan mythology and theology in the Old English poems they inhabit, such a connection returns, oddly enough, in Christian

hagiography A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a preacher, priest, founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian ...

: in

Ælfric of Eynsham Ælfric of Eynsham (; ; ) was an English abbot and a student of Æthelwold of Winchester, and a consummate, prolific writer in Old English of hagiography, homilies, biblical commentaries, and other genres. He is also known variously as '' ...

's ''Passio Saneti Edmundi Regis'' (11th century) a wolf guards the head of Saint

Edmund the Martyr Edmund the Martyr (also known as St Edmund or Edmund of East Anglia, died 20 November 869) was king of East Anglia from about 855 until his death. Few historical facts about Edmund are known, as the kingdom of East Anglia was devastated by t ...

, and in

John Lydgate John Lydgate of Bury () was an English monk and poet, born in Lidgate, near Haverhill, Suffolk, Haverhill, Suffolk, England. Lydgate's poetic output is prodigious, amounting, at a conservative count, to about 145,000 lines. He explored and estab ...

's ''The Life of Saint Alban and Saint Amphibal'' (15th century), "the wolf and also the eagle, upon the explicit command of Christ, protect the bodies of the martyrs from all the other carrion beasts."Honegger 290-91.

Occurrences in Old English poetry

*''

Battle of Brunanburh The Battle of Brunanburh was fought in 937 between Æthelstan, King of Kingdom of England, England, and an alliance of Olaf Guthfrithson, King of Kingdom of Dublin, Dublin; Constantine II of Scotland, Constantine II, King of Scotland; and O ...

'' (61-65) *''

The Battle of Maldon "The Battle of Maldon" is the name given to an Old English Old English literature, poem of uncertain date celebrating the real Battle of Maldon of 991, at which an Anglo-Saxon army failed to repulse a Viking raid. Only 325 lines of the poem are ...

'' (106-107) *''

Beowulf ''Beowulf'' (; ) is an Old English poetry, Old English poem, an Epic poetry, epic in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 Alliterative verse, alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and List of translat ...

'' (3024-27) *'' Elene'' (52-53; 110-113) *'' Exodus'' (162-167) *'' The Fight at Finnsburgh'' (5-7) *'' Genesis A'' (1983–1985) *''

Judith The Book of Judith is a deuterocanonical book included in the Septuagint and the Catholic Church, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Christian Old Testament of the Bible but Development of the Hebrew Bible canon, excluded from the ...

'' (204-212; 292-296) *'' The Wanderer'' (80-83)

References

Notes Bibliography * * * *{{cite book, last=Niles, first=John D., author-link=John D. Niles, editor=Malcolm Godden, editor-link=Malcolm Reginald Godden, others=

Michael Lapidge Michael Lapidge, FBA (born 8 February 1942) is a scholar in the field of Medieval Latin literature, particularly that composed in Anglo-Saxon England during the period 600–1100 AD; he is an emeritus Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, a Fellow ...

, title=The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature, year=2007, publisher=Cambridge UP, isbn=978-0-521-37794-2, pages=126–41, chapter=Pagan survivals and popular belief Old English poetry Old Norse poetry Tropes Wolves in folklore, religion and mythology Mythological corvids Birds in culture Creatures in Norse mythology