Now after the defeat of Grendel comes
a great deal of rejoicing, of course the fact that they've defeated this tremendous
troll, this tremendous monster, that's been plaguing the hall for so long,
but then Hrothgar tells these stories, one of Sigemund and one
of Heremod, and they're stories that are in some ways to
show to everybody else what a good king ought to be,
they're stories that would have been popular at the time of the scop, of the poet, who writes Beowulf
and he's
taking these story and incorporating them into his poem. Nevertheless, the way
they're used here is very
skillful because what Hrothgar is suggesting is that
Sigemund and Heremod give the positive and negative ways to be a king.
Sigemund defeats a dragon, stands up to a dragon, is able to defeat this tremendous dragon,
shows
tremendous courage, great, great strength
in the face of almost certain defeat. And Heremod on the other hand who has given
all these gifts,
it says that he takes them for granted, he begins to take for granted all those
things that have been given to him,
and Hrothgar points out that taking things for granted is the path to destruction,
it's the path to
a person being annihilated, because as he says
once you start taking things for granted, then you think more is due to you
and you don't appreciate what's given to you anymore
and you move from being generous or gracious,
to being covetous and clinging.
And as I said earlier those two routes,
in the mind of the Norse, are the distinguishing marks between the good
king or the hero,
and the evil king or the dragon or the troll.
The good king or the hero is somebody who is gracious, as we saw
very early in the book, at the very beginning of the story. Scyld
Scefing is a
character who is very generous and gracious, but
the other route which is the clinging and the
selfishness, is the route that leads to a dragonish life.
A man doesn't have to be looking like a dragon to be a dragon.
In this story for instance, Heremod ends up killing his neighbors, killing
his friends, killing even his family, which is a terrible thing in Norse mythology,
he kills his own family members and he does so because he's covetous, he
becomes a troll like character, a dragon like character.
And Hrothgar is suggesting to Beowulf, don't be this way,
cherish what you have, be gracious, maintain that strength
that you showed when defeating Grendel. After he has told these tales,
Hrothgar goes then to give gifts to Beowulf,
to adopt him almost like his own son and we will see that in the next section.