Finn, son of Folcwald, was a legendary

Frisia Frisia () is a Cross-border region, cross-border Cultural area, cultural region in Northwestern Europe. Stretching along the Wadden Sea, it encompasses the north of the Netherlands and parts of northwestern Germany. Wider definitions of "Frisia" ...

n king. He is mentioned in ''

Widsith "Widsith" (, "far-traveller", lit. "wide-journey"), also known as "The Traveller's Song", is an Old English poem of 143 lines. It survives only in the '' Exeter Book'' (''pages 84v–87r''), a manuscript of Old English poetry compiled in the la ...

'', in ''

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 ...

'', and in the Finnesburg Fragment. He is named in the ''

Historia Brittonum ''The History of the Britons'' () is a purported history of early Britain written around 828 that survives in numerous recensions from after the 11th century. The ''Historia Brittonum'' is commonly attributed to Nennius, as some recensions ha ...

'', while a Finn, given a different father but perhaps intending the same hero, appears in Anglo-Saxon royal pedigrees. He was married to Hildeburh, a sister of the Danish lord Hnæf, and was killed in a fight with Hnæf's lieutenant Hengest after Hnæf was himself killed by Frisians. A passage from ''Beowulf'' as translated by

Seamus Heaney Seamus Justin Heaney (13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish Irish poetry, poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is ''Death of a Naturalist'' (1966), his first m ...

(lines 1089–1090) reads: :"Finn, son of Folcwald, :should honour the Danes,..." A possible reference to a lost tradition on Finn appears in

Snorri Sturluson Snorri Sturluson ( ; ; 1179 – 22 September 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was elected twice as lawspeaker of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He is commonly thought to have authored or compiled portions of th ...

's ''

Skáldskaparmál ''Skáldskaparmál'' (Old Norse: 'Poetic Diction' or 'The Language of Poetry'; ; ) is the second part of the ''Prose Edda'', compiled by Snorri Sturluson. It consists of a dialogue between Ægir, the divine personification of the sea, and Bra ...

''. Snorri talks of the animosity between

Eadgils Eadgils, ''Adils'', ''Aðils'', ''Adillus'', ''Aðísl at Uppsölum'', ''Athisl'', ''Athislus'' or ''Adhel'' was a semi-legendary king of Sweden, who is estimated to have lived during the 6th century. ''Beowulf'' and Old Norse sources present ...

and

Onela Onela was, according to ''Beowulf'', a Swedish king, the son of Ongentheow and the brother of Ohthere. He usurped the Swedish throne, but was killed by his nephew Eadgils, who won by hiring foreign assistance. In Scandinavian sagas a Norwegi ...

(which also appears in ''

''), and writes that Aðils (Eadgils) was at war with a Norwegian king named Áli (Onela). Áli died in the war, and Aðils took Áli's helmet ''Battle-boar'' and his horse Raven. The Danish berserkers who had helped him win the war demanded three pounds of gold each in pay, and two pieces of armour that nothing could pierce: the helmet battle-boar and the mailcoat ''Finn's heritage''. They also wanted the famous ring Svíagris. Aðils considered the pay outrageous and refused. Finn, the son of ''Fodepald'' (i.e. Folcwald) is also mentioned in the pedigree list of Saxon ancestors of the legendary kings of Kent that appears in ''Historia Brittonum''. The Wessex and Bernician royal genealogies in the

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the ninth century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of ...

and Anglian collection instead make the Finn in the royal pedigree son of Godwulf, and it is uncertain whether the same heroic Finn was originally intended. Richard North notes that ''Folcwalda'' is "identical with the first element of ''fólcvaldi goða'' (' ruler of the host of gods') which is an epithet reserved for

Freyr Freyr (Old Norse: 'Lord'), sometimes anglicized as Frey, is a widely attested Æsir, god in Norse mythology, associated with kingship, fertility, peace, prosperity, fair weather, and good harvest. Freyr, sometimes referred to as Yngvi-Freyr, was ...

". He also notes similarities with "''fólkum stýrir'' ('he leads peoples', Húsdrápa) which celebrates Freyr". Finn is a central subject of '' Finn and Hengest'', a study of the Finnesburg Episode by

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson ...

, edited by Alan Bliss and published posthumously in book form in 1982.

References

Sources

* English heroic legends Fictional monarchs of Frisia Characters in Beowulf {{europe-myth-stub

See also

References

Sources