Beorn

[William Cloud Hicklin]

I like it. Althogh I'm surprised that neither mentioned Tolkien's most direct lift from Beowulf, admittedly not in TH itself: the guard's challenge in Rohan. (In the draft, Tolkien rendered it in Rohirric/Old English)

'The King of the Golden Hall':

"Who are you that come heedless over the plain thus strangely clad, riding horses like to our own horses? Long have we kept guard here, and we have watched you from afar. Never have we seen other riders so strange, nor any horse more proud than is one of these that bear you. He is one of the Mearas, unless our eyes are cheated by some spell. Say, are you not a wizard, some spy from Saruman, or phantoms of his craft? Speak now and be swift!"

Beowulf 193-208 (Tolkien's translation):

"What warriors are ye, clad in corslets, that have come thus steering your tall ship over the streets of the sea, hither over deep waters? Lo! I long while have dwelt at the ends of the land, keeping watch over the water, that in the land of the Danes no foe might come harrying with raiding fleet. Never have armed men more openly here assayed to land, knowing not at all the pass-word of men in array of war, nor having the consent of kinsmen. Never have I seen on earth a greater among men than is one of you, a warrior in arms; no hall-servant is he in brave show of weapons, if his fair countenance lie not and his peerless mien. Now I must learn of what people you are sprung, rather than ye should pass on hence, false spies, into the land of the Danes. In haste it is best that ye declare whence your ways have led!"

(In the draft the passage began"Abidath cuman uncuthe! Hwaet sindon ge, lathe oththe leofe, the thus seldlice gewerede ridan cwomon to thisse burge gatum....")

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

It should perhaps also be borne in mind that using words for dangerous animals to refer to outstanding people is a theme that runs through the surviving corpus of Old English and Old Norse but no more so than in Beowulf. Beorn means both 'warrior' and 'bear', as does Bjorn, which is still in use in Scandinavia as a personal name. Vargr (whence comes warg) means both 'wolf' and 'outlaw'.

It seems as though the ancient Scandinavians (from whom the Angles and Jutes were themselves descended) liked to use animal metaphors to talk about people, as a shorthand for describing their characters, but there could possibly be more to it. Perhaps behind Beowulf lies some shamanistic belief system about skin-changers that Bothvarr Bjarki (the surname means literally 'little bear') makes more explicit. Perhaps the origins of such characters were already forgotten by the time that Hrolfs Saga Kraka - or even Beowulf - was written, and the author was reusing half-remembered snatches of folklore because they made for a good story. Perhaps, like the tales of Wade the Wolfing, the stories behind this one were so well-known at the time of composition that they needed no repetition. Either way, much is implied but left unsaid. Tolkien uses Beorn to explore the possibilities by asking the question: "what would someone be like who was both a man and a bear?".

As in many of the situations in medieval literature that drew Tolkien's attention, we have word, phrase, character or situation which seems to refer to a much wider system of story or belief that is now lost. So we have Earendel, Woodwose, Dweomerlac, Sigelhearwan, all of which Tolkien encountered in his professional studies, all of which seem to have a mythology behind them that is now irrecoverable. In the absence of enough evidence to reconstruct them, what Tolkien often ended up doing was reinventing the source stories out of whole cloth. Time and again his imagination picks up where the facts run out. The only difference between Tolkien and the authors of his sources is how he came by his materials, and he seems to have been very well aware of this. Tellingly he once wrote to his son (Letters #205):

I suddenly realised that I am a pure philologist. I like history, and am moved by it, but its finest moments for me are those in which it throws light on words and names!

Other Beowulfian parallels include the Dragon being stirred to his assault by the theft of a two-handed cup, and possibly the hero being required to enter the dragon's lair alone when the courage of his comanions fails. The trope of the hero receiving useful advice from birds comes from the tale of the other great dragon-slayer, Sigurd the Volsung.