Beowulf

The heroic epic poem, Beowulf, tells the story of a young warrior of a Germanic tribe called the Geats who travels to Denmark to help defeat two monsters and a dragon. It is during Beowulf's adventures that the reader is able to understand the importance of belonging to a community where honor, courage and courtly behaviors and duties prevail. This heroic code and the idea of fate become a vital aspect in warrior societies as a means of understanding their relationship to the world and the evil that is present around them. Therefore, a soldier's individual actions can be perceived as either obeying or violating these codes of ethics. The unknown author uses songs, like the Finnsburg episode, as warnings to emphasize the code's points of conflict by recounting past situations that depict these internal contradictions of loyalty, Christianity, fate, and honor. These contradictions can be seen as a symbol of individuality in a unilateral society.

The Finnsburg episode begins by exploring the concerns about divided loyalties, which the warrior code offers no practical guidance on how to conduct oneself. The code demands undivided loyalty to their lord and only in this way can the society survive due to the ruthless and dangerous world depicted in Beowulf. Since Hildeburh is married to the Frisian king and is the daughter of the Danes, she develops a divided loyalty that is tested after the Danish Frisian War. Like many women depicted in Beowulf, Hildeburh functions as a "peace weaver." The "peace weaver's" duty is to help "heal old wounds and grievous feuds" (Lines 2028 -9). The outcome of the war proves that peace is unsustainable with the death of her Danish brother and Frisian son. Due to her indecisiveness about what group to associate herself with, the code offers only one answer for the remaining warriors; "revenge" (line 1385).

The code is often in conflict with the values of medieval Christianity. The warrior culture dictates, "it's always better to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning" (lines 1384-5); Christian doctrine advocates a peaceful, forgiving attitude toward ones enemies. The awareness that a feud is about to reopen supplies much of the foreboding that is apparent after Knaef is killed and at the end of the poem when Beowulf is dead. Paying the price of a man's life is the only way to keep the cycle of vengeance that characterizes a feud from continuing indefinitely. The reader is given examples of the warrior ethics when the Danes rise up against the Frisians, the decision to attack the mead hall by Grendel's mother, and in Beowulf's decision to come to Hrothgar's aid. This never-ending process of retaliation gives the poem its dark mood.

According to the warrior code, the payment of compensation between disputing tribes were through gold and other extravagant objects. These tokens symbolized a bond of loyalty, kinship, and continuity. This ceremony of gift giving can be seen after the defeat of the Danes when they "bestow with an even hand to Hengest and Hengest's men the wrought-gold rings" (lines 1090 - 2). However, the peace offering does not last due to the presence of two individual, competing tribes and therefore, the warrior code is broken. The inability for two individual contending groups to live in the same community, as seen in the Danes and Frisians, foreshadows the events between Grendel and the Danes. Therefore, the song's purpose in the poem symbolizes as a warning