[skytree]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

As so often with Tolkien, names and words are what got him going- whether as seriously as Earendil or as playfully as Smaug. Here he's taking advantage of a couple of things. Bjørn in Old Norse (for which beorn would be the unrecorded OE cognate) meant (usually) "man, warrior" but plainly originally meant "bear" (from Proto-Germanic *beron), as it does in modern Swedish- hence Beorn is both a warrior and a bear. Compare the bear-avatar Bödvar Bjarki ("Littlebear") from Hrolf Kraki's Saga, a character thought by some to originally have been the same as Beowulf ("Bee-wolf," kenning for bear).* Another Beorn-ingredient, given that he's a bee-keeper and honey-eater!

There is also a connection to the berserker of legend and (perhaps) history, since it's uncertain whether the ber-element before -serk (sark, shirt) meant "bare" or "bear," another bit of linguistic ambiguitity which surely delighted Tolkien.

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*Although Tolkien didn't use the idea in Sellic Spell, there's reason to think that Beowulf originally was a were-bear who actually transformed; look at the fight with Grendel, and the suggestion that when fighting unarmed the hero was invulnerable.

I think one of the best sources I have found on explaining Beorn is an essay by a University of Central Arkansas professor comparing the Hobbit to Beowulf. Some of his ideas on Beorn are the most insightful I've read.

http://faculty.uca.edu/jona/second/hobbeow.htm#note10

Beorn's immediate source in Germanic story is not Beowulf, of course, but an analogue of that poem, the Norse Hrólfssaga Kraka. [ Note 9 ] Beorn's name is the Old English word beorn which, although it means 'warrior, hero' or more generally 'man,' is cognate with the Old Norse björn 'bear.' By a happy linguistic chance (or choice), then, Tolkien is able to use a name for Beorn that suggests both his human and his ursine natures. As a character, Beorn evidently derives from a combination--with significant differences--of two characters, father and son, in Hrólfssaga: Bjorn, who was cursed by his sorcerous stepmother, White, to be a bear during the day and a man by night, and Bothvar Bjarki, Bjorn's son, who appears in the saga's last tragic battle as a great bear (Jones 265-67 and 312-15). [ Note 10 ]

Five differences between Beorn and his Old Norse antecedents are immediately evident. First, Tolkien has taken pains to make Beorn himself--not some other power, like Bjorn's stepmother--the author of his own metamorphic powers. Gandalf, having described Beorn as "sometimes . . . a huge black bear, sometimes . . . a great strong black-haired man with huge arms and a great beard," makes rather a point of adding, "At any rate he is under no enchantment but his own" (118). Thus he takes his place in that high circle of those few who work magic rather than suffer or resist it.

Second, whereas Bjorn appears somehow to become trapped within a bear's body--Bera, the saga says, "seemed to recognize the eyes of Bjorn the king's son in the bear" (Jones 265)--Beorn in his self-chosen transformations to ursine form appears to be just as fully Beorn as when he is in his man-shape. The third difference is closely linked to the second. The bear-form in which Bothvar Bjarki participates in Hrolf's last battle against Skuld is a "sending": Bothvar in human shape remains within the king's lodging while the bear fights, and he cannot be on the field of battle in his man-shape and bear-shape at once (Jones 313-14). Beorn, on the other hand, is, as noted, at all times either wholly man or wholly bear: he chooses his form for the time and for the tasks he must do. In the Battle of the Five Armies, for example, the novel reports, "[h]e came alone, and in bear's shape; and he seemed to have grown almost giant-size in his wrath" (174).

Fourth, unlike Bjorn--who as a bear kills and eats the king his father's cattle and is explicitly cursed to do so by White (Jones 265-67)--Beorn is a vegetarian who "lives most on cream and honey" (119). In this way, his role as Justicer (discussed below) is untainted by any hint of killing in other roles or for other purposes. Fifth, whereas Bjorn's bear-shape is assumed by day, his man-shape at night, Beorn's shapes, insofar as they follow a regular pattern, are assumed the other way around: while Bilbo and the dwarves visit him, at least, Beorn is a man by day and a bear by night (see 127-31). This reversal of the antecedent simply puts Beorn in harmony with conventional/archetypal associations between daylight and rationality, darkness and animality.

Just as evidently, Tolkien takes pains to effect in Beorn a character isolated, somehow, in his magnificence. Though his great strength and size certainly class him with the heroes of Germanic story (see 120), Gandalf's descriptions seem calculated to do something more, to inspire reverence in Bilbo and the dwarves. He is, first, an italicized "somebody," but in the next sentence achieves Tolkienian "uppercase-hood"--"That Somebody" (with a capital "S"), Gandalf calls him, and repeats the uppercase later, adding "a very great person" (117-18). His eschatological appearance in the Battle of the Five Armies likewise sets him apart from all other players in this story:

In that last hour Beorn himself had appeared--no one knew how or from where. He came alone, and in bear's shape; and he seemed to have grown almost to giant-size in his wrath.

The roar of his voice was like drums and guns; and he tossed wolves and goblins from his path like straws and feathers. He fell upon their rear, and broke like a clap of thunder through the ring. (274)

Without claiming specific influence, Beorn's manner and noise here may be noted as similar to descriptions in the biblical book of Revelation; for example, St. John reports "a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of great thunder" (Rev. 14:2). Thus Tolkien sets Beorn apart from the other characters in the novel, giving him powers and associations denied even to Gandalf.

Finally, Tolkien has concentrated in this character one of Bothvar Bjarki's traits--concern for justice--making it Beorn's chief function in the novel. When Bothvar at 18 learns of the manner of his father's death (cursed to be a bear, then hunted and killed as one), his response is typical of him, but not of his brothers--"We have many wrongs to repay this witch," he says, and proceeds to take gruesome vengeance on White (272-74). Similarly, when he meets with his outlaw brother Elgfrothi, he has scruples about Elgfrothi's way of life and lectures him on justice:

Frothi invited him to stay there and hold a half share in everything with himself. Bothvar had no wish for that, for he thought poorly of killing men for their money, so after this he took himself off. Frothi brought him on his way, and told him this, that he had given peace to many men who were of little strength. Bothvar was heartened by this, and said that was well done--'And most men you should let go in peace, even though you think you have something against them.' (Jones 275)

Bothvar's rescue of Hott from the bonepile in Hrolf's court shows a similar concern for fair play (Jones 279-81).

Tolkien's use of Beorn as Justicer follows Bothvar's lead, as is evident particularly in Beorn's concern to check the truth of Gandalf's story and in his reaction to discovering its truth: "It was a good story, that of yours, . . . but I like it still better now I am sure it is true" (132). And Beorn's role in the Battle of the Five Armies is to redress the imbalance of numbers which favors the forces of evil (265-69, 273-74).

In terms of Bilbo's character as developing Leader, Beorn's function as Justicer qualifies the beginning of that development of power, a moral rather than strictly physical qualification. Just as St. Paul's God reserves enforcement of justice to himself--"Vengeance is mine, I will repay" (Rom. 12:19)--so Tolkien reserves it in his novel to Beorn. The seriousness with which Tolkien took this reservation is evident in Gandalf's later commentary on Bilbo's sparing Gollum's life. In The Lord of the Rings the wizard puts it to Frodo--who has just observed that Gollum "deserves death"--this way: "Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the wise cannot see all ends" (1: 93). Such a viewpoint, then, creates Beorn and qualifies Bilbo's potential development in The Hobbit, denying him what the Beowulfian hero proudly takes as his duty and his right--the enforcement of justice against all wrong, whether monster of the dark underground or the fiery dragon of the ancient hoards. (See Beowulf lines 426b-32 and 2333 ff.; cf. Tolkien, "Homecoming" 19-24.)