THE TERRIBLE ONE'S HORSE: CHAPTER 23

BEOWULF AND THE DRAGON II: ANCIENT CULT AND HERO’S DEATH

In “The Hill of the Dragon: Anglo-Saxon Burial Mounds in Literature and Archaeology”, H.R. Ellis Davidson makes her case for the fiery dragon of the barrow being a symbol for the cremation blaze that consumed the dead.  While she makes a good case, and her argument is compelling, there are some obvious problems in her chain of reasoning.

For one, the sources make it plain that the dragon is not itself the fire that it breathes.  Second, these dragons are aerial beings.  A comparison of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle MSS. seems to suggest they are storm-cloud monsters whose movements generated the wind:

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Laud (E) and Parker Chronicle (A):

ormete ligræscas, 7 wæron geseowene fyrene dracan on þam lyfte fleogende.

immense flashes of lightning , and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air.

Worcester Chronicle (D) variant:

excessively high winds and flashes of lightning

Modern folklore in Gotland often identified a dragon with an eldklot or fireball, i.e. a meteor or, presumably, a comet.  From Professor Ulf Palmenfelt, Institutionen för humaniora och samhällsvetenskap, Etnologi, Gotland University:

"There are quite a few folk legends collected by Per Arvid Säve about dragons and snakes on Gotland. There are no sharp limits between the different legend categories, but mostly the snake stories emphasize how scary these beings were and how difficult they were to get rid of. The dragon legends are typically associated with buried treasures. According to popular belief, you were supposed to bury a live animal together with your treasure. The animal would then be transformed into a magic guard in the shape of a dragon. These treasure dragons were said to move the hidden treasures from one place to another, and at such times they could be observed as fireballs moving over the night sky."

Finally, we must take into account the Viking dragon-ships that were burned during ship-funerals, and the ancient stone ship-settings found all over Scandinavia. Thus there are a number of characteristics of dragons that point to their being something other than the cremation blaze.

Let us take a closer look at the nocturnal habit of the Beowulf dragon.  We are told quite specifically:

“So the guardian of the mound,

the hoard-watcher, waited for the gloaming

with fierce impatience…

…Then, to his delight,

the day waned and he could wait no longer

behind the wall, but hurtled forth

in a fiery blaze…

…Then back to the hoard

he would dart before daybreak, to hide in his

den.”

[Lines 2302-2320, Seamus Heaney translation]

As with Grendel, we are dealing with a monster that is active and most powerful only at night.  In my mind’s eye, I saw the crescent moon – not only in the form of a boat, i.e. a Viking ship, but in that of a serpent that like the moon could shed its skin, forever becoming new again.

The Norse dragon Nidhoggr from the Eddas carries dead men across the sky.  To quote from Voluspa 62 (Ursula Dronke’s translation):

There comes the shadowy

Dragon flying,

Glittering serpent, up

From Dark of the Moon Hills [Nidafiollom].

He carries in his pinions

- he flies over the field –

Malice Striker [Nidhoggr], corpses.

The name Nidhoggr is usually rendered something like the above, deriving Nid- from ON nid, contumely, derision, libel, insult, cf. nida, to libel, lampoon, nidingr, villain, scoundrel, vile wretch, nidstong, pole of insult.  However, there is also nidr, ‘down’ and, significantly, nid, THE WANING MOON, TIME BEFORE NEW MOON.  In keeping with the symbolism of a glittering dragon flying up into the sky from the waning moon hills, I would opt for ‘Waning Moon Striker’ as the real name of this monster.

The Viking ship of the dead was called Naglfar.  Simek (in his Dictionary of Northern Mythology) explains how the name betrays folk etymology, as "Nail-ship" should be "Dead/Corpse-ship".  However, the tradition records that the ship is made of the unshorn nails of the dead.  I would only mention that the white portion of fingernail, which we commonly keep trimmed off, forms a white crescent.  Such a color and shape may have reminded people of the crescent moon and as the death-ship symbolized this heavenly body, the name "Nail-ship" may be an intentional poetic metaphor.  Or such an observation could have contributed to the folk etymology from an earlier meaning "Corpse-ship".

The ship of the gods is called Skidbladnir, literally ‘Wood-Leaf’, and it belongs to Freyr in most sources, but to Odin in YNGLINGA SAGA.  Among its magical properties it has this: “when not at sea, it is constructed so skillfully and of so many parts that it can be folded up like a cloth and put in a pouch.”  A lunar boat conforms nicely to this description, as it “folds” up when going from waning crescent to New and becomes invisible – presumably being stored then in the said pouch. When unfolded, it appears as the waxing crescent.

Draugs – revenants inhabiting barrow mounds – are often told about in the Norse sagas.  The most famous draug is Glam of Grettir’s Saga, whose name is literally a poetic word for the moon.  At least in the Norse sources, then, the dead man in the barrow, guarding his grave-goods, became identified with the moon. The sagas record instances of men like Fafnir who, after death, transform into dragons in their barrows (see H.R. Ellis Davidson, “Gods and Myths of Northern Europe”, p. 161).  It may be significant that in Norse belief the moon is male, while the sun is female.

Beowulf, then, slays the lunar dragon that guards its golden sun-hoard within the earth-barrow. Likewise Sigurd the Dragon-slayer slays the dragon Fafnir, who was sitting on his solar gold inside the barrow on Gnita Heath. That the dragon breathed fire appears to be a later development.  Initially, the lunar dragon or ship, bearing dead men, would have been visualized as coming down from the sky, passing through the fiery cloud – itself symbolic of the cremation blaze – before it could set into the earth.  The sun, too, made this dangerous passage of the flaming cloud (clouds during sunset or sunrise can appear as if aflame), and the many stories recounted in the Norse sources of heroes, heroines and gods wading through fire, smoke and water before they can enter a barrow or the underworld represents the same passage through watery, fiery cloud.  In all likelihood the Norse underworld river Slidr in Voluspa 36, said to be full of knives and swords, is actually full of lightning-weapons.  We are often told streams "burst" forth from barrows and some of these may also be symbolic of the "cloud-river" one has to wade in order to enter the underworld.

But why kill the moon monster at all?  Unless it were considered inherently malicious and dangerous?

The answer to this question could lie in a unique phenomenon experienced only in the far North: the major lunar standstill.  To quote from Dr. Judy Young, Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst (personal correspondence):

 “The Moon could be said to "die" if one observed from high latitudes in a Major Standstill year.  Then, the full Moon of summer might not be visible (above latitude 61 degrees, i.e. Orkney), but it would be visible a few days before full (and then reappear a few days later).

Even at latitude +57 degrees, the Moon could 'disappear' if there are sufficient hills on the horizon. At Callanish, lat=58, the Moon is only 3 degrees above the horizon when full near summer solstice in a Major Standstill year. So big enough hills could hide that.  But not if one is looking over the ocean...”

Rone, Gotland, the location of both Beowulf's barrow and that of the dragon (see Part 1 of this essay), is a bit above the 57th line of latitude. However, a major lunar standstill does not take into account Beowulf’s presence during the slaying of the dragon.  Furthermore, we could not account for so many other dragon stories set in much lower latitudes!

The solution to the problem is to rely on good old-fashioned solar mythology – specifically, the kinds of stories that arise from the occurrence of a total solar eclipse.

Running dates from NASA’s Five Millenium Catalog of Solar Eclipses, and restricting myself to the generally agreed upon floruit of Beowulf being 5th or 6th century, I found a total solar eclipse whose central path crossed Gotland on May 28, 458 A.D.  The northern and southern path limits of the eclipse covered exactly all of Gotland from its northernmost extremity to its southernmost.

For a map showing the eclipse, go here:

http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEsearch/SEsearchmap.php?Ecl=04580528

See also the following diagram of the eclipse:

http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/5MCSEmap/0401-0500/458-05-28.gif:

This would have been a major event for the Iron Age inhabitants of the island.  Not only is the eclipse total, with its central path crossing the midpoint of Gotland, but the eclispe was at maximum at 1:18 p.m., so the whole event played out around noon.   Beowulf as a solar hero vanquishes the lunar dragon, but himself succumbs during the struggle.

NOTE ON THE SMISS STONE

"The Snake-witch (Ormhäxan), Snake-charmer (Ormtjuserskan) or Smiss stone (Smisstenen) is a picture stone found at Smiss, När parish, Gotland, Sweden. Discovered in a cemetery, it measures 82 cm (32 in) in height and depicts a figure holding a snake in each hand. Above the figure there are three interlaced creatures (forming a triskelion pattern) that have been identified as a boar, an eagle, and a wolf.] The stone has been dated to 400–600 AD." [Description from Wikipedia]

To confirm the date, I contacted the chief archaeologist of the Gotland Historical Museum, Per Widerstrom.  His response:

"That stone is in the shape of the stones from appx 200- 600 AD. And in that span it is believed to belong to the later part, the 5th or 6th centuries."

This is, of course, the floruit of Beowulf.

As the triskelion or triskele is often a solar symbol, the goddess on the lower register of this stone, holding two snakes, is probably a moon deity.  The reader will observe that the primary bend of the snake on the left conforms to a waxing crescent moon, while the main bend of the serpent on the right bears the shape of the waning crescent.  The goddess herself, or more likely her head, would be symbolic of the full moon.  While some theories have attempted to connect her with Celtic Cernunnos figures sitting in the 'yogi' posture, this figure is plainly either in a birthing position or a receptive sexual one.

In my opinion, this figure is "evidence" of the worship of a pre-Viking era lunar snake goddess on Gotland.