[Janice D. Soderling]

This is particularly for Tim Murphy, but it might be of interest for several so I'm putting it here in GT.

I'm reading "Beowulf" as translated by Seamus Heaney (Faber and Faber, 1999) and in a parallel reading, the translation by Tim and Alan Sullivan (Longman Cultural Edition, 2004). Two quite different styles, but both highly enjoyable.

My comment concerns the line designated in Tim's version as line 1957 which mentions "raven". The lines aren't stated in the Heaney presentation and it might not exactly agree so I'm writing the significant passage below.

The translations are as follows:

(Heaney)

That great heart rested. The hall towered,
gold-shingled and gabled, and the guest slept in it
Until the black raven with raucous glee
announced heaven's joy, and a hurry of brightness
overran the shadows. (…)

(Sullivan & Murphy)

Beneath golden gables the great-hearted guest
dozed until dawn in the high-roofed hall,
when the black raven blithely foretold
joy under heaven. Daybreak hastened

Tim and Alan have an interesting footnote about the target word "raven"

(footnote 29)

29. black raven The raven makes an ironic bearer of joyful news. The Old English adjective modifying the bird could be either blæc, "black" or blac, "shining" which conveys the quality of the raven's glossy feathers. Brightness and luster seem to be an integral part of the comprehension of color in Old English.
This reference is surely to (Turdus merula) which we in Sweden call "koltrast" (literal translation "coal thrush"), in English it is called "blackbird" or "merle". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_blackbird

It has a beautiful song, very loud, offers it up at night, an hour or so before dawn. (At least I think the song is beautiful, though when I was younger and had been up partying until late, I didn't think it was so beautiful when it woke me up after a few hours sleep!)

This is the same bird of which Paul McCartney wrote "Blackbird singing in the dead of night…" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ehhZ53zysQ

So it seems to me that the footnote is spot on, that the translators Alan and Tim sensed instinctively that "raven" (genus Corvus) did not fit the context, but had never heard the purling song of turdus merula. The raven, all of the Corvus family, is indeed raucous and so NOT a bearer of joyful news. I think it wasn't a raucous raven that woke Beowulf's warriors who would be setting forth for Geat.

[ross hamilton hill]

I did a quick google of "raven poem Beowulf" the first results cite commentary about the raven in the poem.
Delineates how the symbol of the raven which appears 5 times links up to other aspects of the poem.

[Janice D. Soderling]

And exactly what is the point you are making, Ross?

It is common knowledge that ravens are an important part of Old Norse mythology. They devour the bodies of warriors fallen in battle. The ravens Huginn (thought) and Muninn (memory or mind) sit on the shoulders of Odin.

I am asking Tim for his thoughts on whether the translation of blæc + bird (which probably is fugl like Swedish fågel and Danish, Norwegian and Old Norse fugl, and German vogel) might not plausibly be "blackbird" rather than "raven".

[Janice D. Soderling]

However it was useful to google "raven poem Beowulf" as Ross suggested since that indicates there is tradition of using "raven" as a target word.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/27708920...n_tab_contents

This link above is owned by those awful people at JSTOR who think that scholarly knowledge should not be shared unless paid for, but in general this abstract agrees with the abstract quoted below (from the academia link directly below).

http://www.academia.edu/1728196/Hyge...-hearted_raven

The blithe-hearted raven of Beowulf l.1801 is an interpretative crux. It appears joyfully heralding the new dawn after a peaceful night’s sleep in Heorot, the direct consequence of Beowulf’s disposal of the Grendels. Yet elsewhere in the poem (and in Old English generally) the raven is associated with death. This juxtaposition of the usually morbid bird and happy context has troubled commentators on the poem.


I propose a two-part interpretation of this scene. Firstly I show that the blithe-hearted raven fits into a larger tradition of news-bringing birds evidenced in both the Old English and Old Norse-Icelandic (e.g. in Huginn and Muninn, but also in Ynglingatal, Rigsþula, The Seafarer, Christ II ll.636-655) and that this raven in Beowulf is ambiguous and is not necessarily a bad omen – and indeed that it initially appears to be a good omen. Subsequently I argue that this positive appearance is undermined as it becomes more apparent that the raven actually looks forward to Hygelac’s death at the hands of Daeghrefn (‘day-raven’), and I show that five (of the six) raven references in Beowulf are linked with Hygelac and the image of dawn, perhaps most notably in the name of Hygelac’s slayer and his dawn-raid against Ongentheow at Hrefnesholt (‘wood of the raven’).

It seems to me that commentators are bending over backward to find a reason for "a blithe raven", for a "joyous raven".

That is why I am curious to know what the source word(s) is/are.

However another thing that aroused my curiosity is whether Beowulf (which exists in only one copy and is said to be written in England some time between the 8th and the early 11th century) might not hark back to a more ancient oral tale. The many references to the Christian god seem (to me) to be a revisionist text and it would make much more sense that the references were to the Norse god Odin (or Woden in German parlance). And since we have no other copy than the damaged one in the British library.

Christianity did not take root in Sweden until the year 1100s and coexisted parallel with the Norse gods until the 1300s. Denmark was converted earlier. But it is striking that the Beowulf story does not have any reference to Christ but only to a powerful God. And in the breakthrough for Christianity, (setting aside for the moment, the royal feuds and politics and forced conversion of the people), the Christ figure was an important early symbol.

[Charlie Southerland]

Perhaps the reference to blaeck bird is the only usage between the raven and the blackbird, the first which caws raucously, the latter, a singer of wonderful songs. Perhaps it is due to color which I think is synonymous with both birds. That would make more sense, and in this case, size doesn't matter, only color. Of course, the red-wing blackbird seems to make some of the most strange and beautiful sounds of all birds. I don't know if they ever graced the Dane or Norse homelands.

[Peter Chipman]

In the original it's a "hrefn blaca"--a "shining (black?) raven," not merely a "shining (black?) bird."

One might argue that "hrefn" represents an emendation of the original word, except for the fact that the second half of the line speaks of "heofones wynne" (heaven's joy), and the mandatory alliteration between the two hemistichs requires the "h" of "hrefn," to match the "h" of "heofones."

So though your hypothesis is intriguing, Janice, the evidence of the text itself seems to be against it.

yours,
Peter

[Michael Juster]

The answer to Aldhelm's Riddle 43 is "raven." The Aenigmata were written in the second half of the seventh century in southern Britain, maybe around 675.

Aldhelm's raven is a Christian symbol of rebellion against God (Genesis 8:6-7), but in Riddle 43 it probably has more than a hint of the pagan symbolism too. There were not clean lines between the traditions for many centuries--Aldhelm himself associated God with the pagan tradition by referring to God as "the Thunderer." Nonetheless, in the Christian literature of the time the raven was associated with independence, treachery and intelligence, not so much death, so it would not be incongruous for a raven to deliver this message--perhaps it could even be seen as making amends for not responding to the word of the Lord in the Old Testament.

[I cross-posted with the previous two posts, fyi]

Ravens (corvus in Latin) were common in Late Antique and early medieval literature--the more benign blackbird was not common, I believe, until later than Beowulf. I think Tim/Alan & Heaney are probably right in calling the bird a raven, but you should hold your expectations for clarity down--I think this passage is one of the ones primarily attributable to Alan.

[Michael Juster]

I should note that "black raven" was not redundant--Anglo-Saxons referred to certain herons as "night ravens."

[ross hamilton hill]

"Two ravens sit on Odin's shoulders, and whisper in his ear the tidings and events they have heard and witnessed. They are called Hugin and Munin (mind and memory). He sends them out at dawn of day to fly over the whole world, and they return at eve toward meal-time. Hence it is that Odin knows so many things, and is called the ravens' god."

[Peter Chipman]

(For anyone who's interested, the passage in question can be found at the bottom of f172r in the Nowell Codex, available online thanks to the British Library.)