Beowulf

Recently I had the urge, for some reason, to read early Anglo-Saxon epic poetry. So I picked up Beowulf, partly because it's pretty short. I figured I'd get through it rather quickly and still have that great sense of accomplishment of finishing a book.

I could almost immediately see the influence it had on Tolkien: monsters and dragons, the sounds of the places and names, the hardened but virtuous warrior embarking on a seemingly hopeless journey, etc. Tolkien was the scholar who opened up Beowulf to literary criticism, going further than the mere historical or linguistic attention it had received previously. I would like to take this a step further and dare to suggest that the anonymous author of Beowulf was prophetic. Specifically regarding Superbowl IV.

Superbowl IV was the timeless matchup in 1970 between my home team, the Kansas City Chiefs, and the Minnesota Vikings, team of our esteemed commenter, "anonymous."

The obvious connection is in the team names: Chiefs and Vikings. Beowulf was written in England, but it was written about events that took place in Viking Sweden and Denmark before some of these people relocated to the British Isles. The Vikings were not a monolithic entity. They were a collection of tribes with cultural unity but local loyalties to the strongest warrior, constantly fighting one another. Beowulf, the hero of the epic, through his prowess and sheer domination, became the Chief of the Geats.

Beowulf is referred to as a chief or chieftan multiple times in the poem. Here is just one example:

The chieftain went on to reward the others:

each man on the bench who had sailed with Beowulf

and risked the voyage received a bounty,

some treasured possession.

[Lines 1049 - 1052, Seamus Heaney translation]

How true - even now. The Chiefs have a 53-man roster. Only 11 can be on the field at a time. The players who spend most their career sitting on the bench still get paid.

Although the Vikings were 13-point favorites going into the game, it ended in a 23-7 Chiefs' victory. Quarterback Len Dawson was awarded the MVP (strikingly similar to Beowulf receiving the "MVP" from Hrothgar after killing Grendel). This passage from Beowulf accurately describes the defeat of Vikings, then and in 1970:

But when dawn broke and day crept in

over each empty, blood-spattered bench,

the floor of the mead hall where they had feasted [Tulane Stadium]

would be slick with slaughter. And so they died,

faithful retainers, and my following dwindled.

[484 - 488]

After the slaying of Grendel, the Danes held a celebration in honor of Beowulf. They sang and played music for the hero, and a poet recounted for the chief the fate of one Viking tribe:

The woman wailed

and sang keens,

the warrior went up.

Carcass flame

swirled and fumed,

they stood round the burial

mound and howled

as heads melted,

crusted gashes

spattered and ran

bloody matter.

The glutton element

flamed and consumed

the dead of both sides.

Their great days were gone.

[1118 - 25]

I admit we don't have conclusive evidence to support my thesis, and nowadays the Chiefs are no team to boast about, as hinted at in the last two quoted lines. But the inquisitive reader can't help but be perplexed by the similarities between this piece of literature saturated with mystery and Superbowl IV which took place over a thousand years later.