Other Characteristic of the Beowulf Poet:

The Beowulf Poet Knew Homer · Other Characteristic of the Beowulf Poet:

Either he knew or was known by the author of the Ludwigslied:

Einan kuning uueiz ih, heizsit her Hluduig
ther gerno gode thionot: ih uueiz her imos lonot.
Kind uuarth her faterlos. thes uuarth imo sar buoz:
holoda inan truhtin, magaczogo uuarth her sin.

I know of a king called Louis who gladly serves God and is rewarded for it. He lost his father as a child, but there was a recompense for this: the Lord called upon him and became his tutor (magaczago: lit., “son-shower”).*

It's not just that The Lord is "truhtin" in Old High German and "dryhten" in Old English, but the whole passage has a parallel in the description of Scyld Scefing:

... Syððan ærest wearð
feasceaft funden, he þæs frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah
oðþæt him æghwylc ymbsittendra
ofer hron-rade hyran scolde,
gomban gyldan. Þæt wæs god cyning.

... Though he was first
a poor foundling, he lived to find comfort;
under heavens he flourished, with honors fulfilled—
till each neighboring nation, those over the whale-road,
bowed under his rule, paid the price of tribute.
That was a good king!**

The line "good king" is as close as you can say of a pagan or not explicit Christian what the other poet said of Lewis III of France: "who gladly serves God."

But in both you have the theme of orphanage, and in both it is mentioned he "found comfort" for such beginnings. In both poems also, you have a plight on one people who somehow had not served God. Danes, for idolatry, were given over to the ravages of Grendel, and French, under Lewis III, were given over to ... Danes. I wouldn't be surprised if Ludwigslied involves Danes paying some tribute.***

Victims of Viking raids would have probably been more at ease thinking of Danes as a punishment from God than thinking of Danes in more human terms, as sharing their own condition of sometimes punished by God. I would say it is highly probable that Beowulf was written after the Ludwigslied and served as a theological pendant to it, in order to not dehumanise the Danes, also created in God's image, also redeemed by Calvary, also destined for Glory Eternal, but so far missing out.

This is of course somewhat relativising my point about Photius being the author.° While Photius certainly knew the Iliad and Odyssey, he was a Greek, is it quite as sure he knew the Ludwigslied? If he did, he had made peace with his old adversaries, Franks that say "filioque" and if he did, he might have chosen to make Geats his heros because the Varangian guard in Constantinople included them.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Patient of Lyon
11.IX.2025

Lugduni, in Gallia, depositio sancti Patientis Episcopi.

* English translation by Jake Coen.

Ludwigslied
https://sites.nd.edu/manuscript-studies/translations/ludwigslied/

** English translation chosen is that by John McNamara.

Beowulf — opening lines (1–11)
https://drmarkwomack.com/pdfs/beowulf-opening-lines.pdf

*** Actually not, I skimmed the English translation to the end, and no, the Vikings are just beaten and struck with woe.

° In my essay from 2012, I had written: If someone knows of some Byzantine cleric who disappeared from history before he died, I am not sure the Beowulf poet in England can be excluded from being that person later in life. Obviously, Photius fits that bill.