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The Manly Men of Myth and Middle-Earth

© Michael Martinez

I was first introduced to the Beowulf legend in the fourth grade. My classmates and I were assembled along with a few hundred other lucky kids in an experimental school, the like of which I have never seen again. We were given the usual lessons and textbooks, but there was a particular emphasis on sparking the children's imaginations. We were literally inundated with audio-visual aids and tools. We watched movies, played our own film strips, interrupted classes to follow the space missions, and made things in our cone's art room. I remember vividly reading stories about Thor and his goat-drawn chariot. He was said to have killed the goats each night and eaten them, only to bring them back to life the next day. I followed the Mighty One on his dangerous adventures against the giants. And there was the story of Beowulf, with his ship-full of brave Geats, to rescue King Hrothgar from the deadly menace of Grendel and his mother. I didn't know then, however, that the interest in Beowulf had been rekindled by a man in England named Tolkien. In fact, at the time, I knew nothing of Tolkien and Hobbits and Elves and Dragons. For some reason, he wasn't included in our unusual curriculum. It was a different world from today. My friends and I all wanted Richard Nixon to be President, because our families believed he would get us out of the Vietnam War. I suppose the country had other things than Hobbits to think about at the time. "Beowulf" the poem is an appropriate symbol for the generation of Americans who had to live through the Vietnam War. We grew weary of it. Hrothgar's people were weary of the terror which Grendel wreaked upon their lives. His warriors were brave men, but they had reached a point where they refused to go up against the monster. "Sore is my soul to say to any of the race of man what ruth for me in Heorot Grendel with hate hath wrought, what sudden harryings," Hrothgar tells Beowulf when the Geats first arrive in Heorot. "Hall-folk fail me, my warriors wane; for Wyrd hath swept them into Grendel's grasp." Except for the preamble which informs the audience of Beowulf's mission, one would not know from the coastal warden's speech that his people are so oppressed. He is a brave man, who confronts Beowulf's company alone, while his men wait behind him. And he judges Beowulf to be trustworthy and sets his own men to guard Beowulf's ship, while he himself leads the hero and his company to Heorot. If Hrothgar is still served by such men, what sort of men served him before?

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