Michael Wilkes

At the Middle Earth weekend at Sarehole Mill, Hall Green, on May 17^th and 18^th, Shire Productions, will perform extracts from the heroic poem Beowulf in atmospheric Moseley Bog. Middle Earth means the world that lies between heaven and hell, i.e. the world of mortals. Beowulf is an Old English epic poem probably written by an unknown author between 500 and 700 AD. It was a folk story that would have been passed on by storytellers for decades before being written down.

Although written in Old English (Anglo-Saxon), the action takes place in Denmark and the hero, Beowulf, is Swedish. The audience could well have been Anglo-Saxon settlers from Denmark who arrived during the Dark Ages - a rather misleading name referring to the lack of written material from the period.

Beowulf is part myth and part fact (many of the battles mentioned were real) and is a story of heroism against dark forces. It follows Beowulf’s life and his transition from young, bold, warrior to wise but ageing King. The hero’s name loosely translates from ‘Beo’ for bee and ‘wulf’ for hunter. Bears hunt bees and the name, therefore, becomes ‘bee-hunter’ or ‘Bear’.

JRR Tolkien spent his childhood in Birmingham in the midmost part of England. His love of Anglo-Saxon started at King Edward’s School. Reading Beowulf in Modern English and then in the original, he grew fond of the story and its language, realising that its dialect resembled that of his mother’s West Midland ancestors. The sound of voices from Birmingham (‘home of the people of Beorma’) and the Black Country, far from being the butt of humour, may be an echo of the sound of Mercian Anglo-Saxon.

Tolkien liked stories about dragons. Beowulf battles against two monsters and a dragon. The tale in the poem of the theft of a golden cup from the dragon re-surfaces in The Hobbit, as does the description of the Golden Hall in The Two Towers. Despite possible dates, it may be that the description of Hrothgar’s hall in Beowulf relates to the hall of Offa, King of Mercia in the 8^th century. Tolkien translated Beowulf, but regrettably this has so far not been published.

As a young man in Sweden, the land of the Geats, Beowulf is a great warrior whose personality and characteristics include great courage, strength and the essential heroic qualities of loyalty, courtesy and pride.

Having become a hero in his own land, Beowulf hears about the terrible creature Grendel who is ravaging the mead-hall of King Hrothgar in Denmark. He sets off with a loyal band of warriors to rid Hrothgar’s court of this menace. Defeating Grendel, he then has to fight Grendel’s mother who seeks vengeance for the death of her son. Beowulf is successful and, greatly respected and richly rewarded, he returns to his own country where he becomes a much-loved ruler keeping the peace and governing wisely.

However, as the poem shows, heroic lives have doom waiting in the wings. Fifty years later the land is being devastated by a dragon angry at the theft of a gold cup from its lair.

 Beowulf defeats the dragon but in so doing is mortally wounded. His death is followed by years of chaos, and the poem reflects on differences between the responsibilities of a young warrior and a ruler who leaves his people without a successor.

To see the enactment of extracts from Beowulf, dramatised by Hall Green’s Vivienne Wilkes, come to Birmingham’s Middle Earth weekend!