SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

282 Beowulf, Swedes and Geats
Scandinavian, more 'Swedish', if one must be pressed, than
Sutton Hoo. For while some of the Sutton Hoo treasures
are Swedish in orientation, they constitute a small part of
the whole. Sword-pommel, helmet and shield are major
items, but there are Frankish coins, fragments of imported
silks, a Coptic bowl from Alexandria, and Celtic hanging
bowls. Beowulf, on the other hand, deals almost
exclusively with Scandinavian affairs, the relations of
Geat, Dane, and Swede, in the troubled times of the late
migration period. Sutton Hoo is a very significant,
though limited, find, firmly fixed in reality - in place and
(in a somewhat less precise sense) in time. Beowulf is
a work of fiction, which celebrates with honour and
solemnity the heroic Northern past.
In the current state of knowledge about the period
before the Viking Age in Scandinavia, it is tempting to
draw together whatever information we have to make
a satisfying whole, and Beowulf is easily overtaxed as
evidence, as it pre-dates most, if not all, of the accounts
extant from Scandinavia. This paper, written from the
point of view of someone whose interests are focussed on
Anglo-Saxon literature, has been an attempt to set some
slightly different perspectives on the poem's form, and the
picture it presents of early Scandinavian history.
Beowulf, Sutton Hoo, and early Scandinavian archaeology
and legend all somehow enrich one another, but the
relation between all or even any two members of the
series is not easy to define. It is sincerely hoped that
further research and new discoveries, particularly in the
field of archaeology, will soon supersede the tentative
suggestions made here.