3i6 Beowulf and Widsith 



this from Bede,^ under the year 697 : 'Queen Osthryth was slain 

 by her own nobles, those, namely, of the Mercians.' From this 

 Ten Brink draws the not unreasonable inference that the queen 

 had incurred the hatred of her people, or at all events of her 

 nobility, by her harshness and cruelty. What was known of her 

 character might thus have led a contemporary poet to give actual- 

 ity to his work by introducing- her into it, under the name of 

 Thryth, as a feminine counterpart of the ferocious Heremod 

 (Beozv. 1709 ff.). Ten Brink then concludes that this episode 

 must have been introduced between 697 and 700." 



V. ALDFRITH AND BEOWULF 



If we admit, with Ten Brink, the appropriation of a single cur- 

 rent event or character by the poet of Beozvulf, it is surely per- 

 missible to look about us, if perchance we may discover in it, under 

 transparent disguises, other facts of contemporary biography or 

 history. The one we have noted occurred in 697, and BrandP 

 assigns to Beozvulf the approximate date of 700. We are still 

 within the reign of Aldfrith, and perhaps at his court, for it is at 

 a king's court that we may most easily conceive the poet of 

 Beozvulf as living. This has been clearly seen by Brandl,* who 

 argues that it is thus easiest to explain the poet's unusual knowl- 

 edge of history, his familiarity with the courtly manners dis- 

 played at the reception of Beowulf by Hrothgar, and on other 

 occasions,^ and his repeated inculcation of the duties of a good 

 king. Now, if Oman is righf in apprehending that the murder 

 of Osthryth 'would seem to point to civil strife and palace revolu- 

 tions,' it is evident that during the remaining seven years of 

 ^thelred's reign, it is not at the Mercian court that such lessons 

 could well be learned ; nor were conditions much, if any. more 

 favorable during the two succeeding reigns (704-716).'^ 



^ Eccl. Hist. 5. 24; cf. Sax. Chr. 697. 



''Pp. 116, 230-1. 



^ Pp. 51, 61; so Chambers, Beowulf, 1921, p. 332. Already in 1849, Jakob 

 Grimm thus dated the Beowidf (Abh. dcr Berliner Akad., p. 230) : 'dessen 

 jetzige gestalt hochstens dem siebenten odcr gar achten jahrh. angehort.' 



'P. 61. 



°Cf. Beoiv. 358-9, 613 fif., 921 ff. 



"P. 314. 



' See Oman, p. 315. 



