Author: Richard Fahey

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Skin-changers: Werewolves in the Medieval and Modern Imagination

This Halloween, I’d like to talk about werewolves, one of the classic monsters whose image helps to characterize this—my favorite—holiday.

Werewolves, while sometimes overshadowed by the more frequent and high-profile appearance of other monsters such as vampires and zombies in popular literature, have a mythology that has endured for millennia and still finds a way to haunt our cultural imagination. Unsurprisingly, werewolves feature in Victorian Gothic literature, including works such as Hugues, the Wer-Wolf by Sutherland Menzies (1838), Wagner the Wehr-Wolf (1847) by G. W. M. Reynolds, “The Man-Wolf” (1831) by Leitch Ritchie, “A Story of a Weir-Wolf” (1846) by Catherine Crowe and The Wolf Leader (1857) by Alexandre Dumas.

Werewolf from Stephen Sommers’ ‘Van Helsing’ (2004).

When werewolves have appeared in more recent popular literature, they often do so in the context of a prescribed, age-old struggle between their kind and vampires. Werewolf-vampire racial animosity is dramatized in the film series Underworld (2003), which injects an unlikely love story into the ancient war between these monstrous groups. This conflict has since become a regular feature of modern vampire films, such as in Van Helsing (2004) and What We Do in the Shadows (2014), and in TV series such as Twilight (2008) and True Blood (2008). Penny Dreadful (2014), a show which delights in Victorian monstrosities, also nods to this tradition when two werewolf characters (Ethan and Kaetenay) are forced to battle a gang of vampires, while Hemlock Grove (2013) alternatively features both a werewolf named Peter and a vampyric upir named Roman who share mutual respect and admiration.

Vampire lord, Viktor, battles against a werewolf in Len Wiseman’s ‘Underworld’ (2003).

Generally whenever we see werewolves in modern popular literature, it is in this shared context, which is also true of the the TV series Being Human (2011); however, werewolves have (in a few cases) been given center stage. The classic and most obvious examples are the films An American Werewolf in London (1981) and An American Werewolf in Paris (1997).

More recently, in Harry Potter and the of Azkaban (2004), Remus Lupin, who is one of the wizard professors at Hogwarts and also a werewolf, is a main protagonists in the film, despite that vampires feature nowhere in the series and are rarely mentioned even in J. K. Rowling’s novels. For Teen Wolf (2011), a TV series focused on a teenage boy’s struggle with lycanthropy, the absence  of vampires is a point of pride. Often werewolves have been gendered male, but the TV series Bitten (2014) challenges this stereotype by centering the plot on a female werewolf protagonist and her struggles within a werewolf patriarchy. Unfortunately, and counterproductively, the series is plagued by a consistent hyper-sexualization of her character in a manner all too familiar from the modern vampire craze. I’d like to believe this inconsistent and contradictory messaging might have contributed to the show’s discontinuation in 2016, but somehow I doubt it.

Professor Lupin (David Thewlis) transforming into a werewolf in Alfonso Cuarón’s ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’ (2004).

Today, we will discuss skin-changing and werewolfism in the medieval literary traditions of Northern Europe, primarily as contained in the context of the Old Norse fornaldarsǫgur. We will also consider how lycanthropy in the Old Norse Hrólfs saga kraka and Vǫlsunga saga inform certain instances of skin-changers in modern literature, especially in the fantasy worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien and George R. R. Martin.

Numerous academic blogs have explored the topic of lycanthropy, usually—and unsurprisingly—around this same time of year. In fact, the website Sententiae Antiquae has, in years passed, written a blog series on werewolves in the classical tradition, including blogs on Petronius’ werewolf story from Satyricon (62), Pliny the Elder’s emphasis on clothing and description of werewolf superstitions in his Natural History (8.80-4), and an overview of classical lycanthropy producing a list of sources including, Herodotus’ Histories, Plato’s Republic, Pausanias’ Geography of Greece, anonymous Greek Medical Treatises on the Treatment of Lycanthropy, St. Augustine of Hippo’s City of God, and the 11th century medieval Latin poem, Poemata 9.841, by a monk named Michael Psellus (which is notably influenced by Greek medical treatises). These blogs have tended to focus especially on classical superstitions, such as nakedness being a prerequisite for transformation and the belief that a wolf’s gaze could paralyze humans.

Miniature of wolves and (below) the man paralyzed by their gaze from the ‘Rochester Bestiary’ in BL, Royal MS 12 F. xiii, f. 29r.

The British Library has also composed a blog on lycanthropy in the context of the influence of classical werewolf mythology on later medieval literature. This blog references classical werewolf stereotypes primarily derived from Pliny’s description of versipelles ‘skin-changers’ (his term for werewolves) in Natural History, and then moves to consider especially Bisclavret, the famous Breton lay by Marie de France, and Gerald of Wales’ description of an Irish folktale concerning lycanthropy in his Topographica Hibernica, both of which present a very positive image of a werewolf, complete with the capacity for human understanding and compassion.

Two werewolves and the priest from Gerald of Wales’ ‘Topographica Hibernica’ in BL Royal MS 13 B. viii, f. 18r.

However, as mentioned earlier, werewolves appear also in the vernacular traditions of medieval Scandinavia, and this blog aims to expand the web-conversation surrounding versipelles ‘skin-changers’ in medieval literature to include examples from Old Norse saga prose literature, which contain numerous references to humans transforming into various beasts, usually wolves or bears.

This Old Norse tradition of skin-changers contributes directly to Tolkien’s character of Beorn, the werebear from The Hobbit (1937). Gandalf describes Beorn in chapter VII “Queer Lodgings” when Thorin and his company are traveling through the Misty Mountains:

“He [Beorn] is a skin-changer. He changes his skin: sometimes he is a huge black bear, sometimes he is a great strong black-haired man with huge arms and a great beard. I cannot tell you much more, though that ought to be enough. Some say that he is a bear descended from the great and ancient bears of the mountains that lived there before the giants came. Other say that he is a man descended from the first men who lived before Smaug or the other dragons came into this part of the world, and before the goblins came into the hills out of the North. I cannot say, though I fancy the last is the true tale. He is not the sort of person to ask questions of. At any rate he is under no enchantment but his own.”

Gandalf (Ian Mckellen) speaks with Beorn in bear-form in Peter Jackson’s ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’ (2013).

Beorn, like his namesake Bjǫrn (a hero from Hrólfs saga kraka), transforms physically from man to bear—though Bjǫrn’s transformations are the product of a curse by his evil stepmother, Queen Hvít, as opposed to Beorn who seems in full control of his metamorphoses in The Hobbit. Jesse Byock’s The Saga of the King Hrolf Kraki reads:

“She [Hvít] then struck him [Bjǫrn] with her wolfskin gloves, telling him to become a cave bear, grim and savage: ‘You will eat no food other than your own father’s livestock and, in feeding yourself, you will kill more than has ever been observed before. You will never be released from the spell, and your awareness of this disgrace will be more dreadful to you than no remembrance at all.’ Then Bjorn disappeared, and no one knew what had become of him…. Next to be told is that the king’s cattle were being killed in large numbers by a grey bear, large and fierce. One evening it happened that Bera, the freeman’s daughter, saw the savage bear. It approached her unthreateningly. She thought she recognized in the bear the eyes of Bjorn, the king’s son, and so she did not run away. The beast then moved away from her, but she followed it all the way until it came to a cave. When she entered the cave, a man was standing there” (37).

This passage describes the power of the queen’s curse to physically transform Bjǫrn, which leads ultimately to his death at the hands of his own father and his warriors. However, it also emphasizes that, while Bjǫrn is dangerous to the livestock, he retains his humanity and at night transforms back into a man.

Beorn in bear-form in ‘The Battle of the Five Armies’ by Justin Gerard (2009).

The character of Bǫðvar Bjarki, son of Bjǫrn (who too shares characteristics and some parallel achievements with Beorn from The Hobbit), also from Hrólfs saga kraka, trances and in doing so is able to inhabit the mind of a bear and control its actions. This is particularly crucial during the saga’s climactic battle between the monstrous army of Hjǫvard and Skuld and the forces of King Hrólf.

The ability to enter into and take over an animal’s consciousness, as a form of shape-shifting through meditation, appears also in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (1991)—and corresponding HBO series Game of Thrones (2011)—in the contexts of characters called ‘wargs’ who possess this distinct ability. This group includes a number of those in the Stark family (whose family sigil is appropriately a direwolf). In Martin’s series, characters described as wargs are always from the wintry North, and regularly use their possessed animals to battle their enemies, as in Hrólfs saga kraka.

Robb Stark and his direwolf Grey Wind confront a captured Jaime Lannister in HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’ (2011).

The Old Norse Vǫlsunga saga, more famous for its dragon and dwarf (namely, Fáfnir and Regin) than its werewolves, does nevertheless have a section in which Sigmundr and Sinfjǫtli specifically wear wolf-pelts in order to transform themselves into wolves and roam the wilderness together in wolf-form. Jesse Byock’s The Saga of the Volsungs reads:

“One time, they went again to the forest to get themselves some riches, and they found a house. Inside it were two sleeping men, with thick gold rings. A spell had been cast upon them: wolfskins hung over them in the house and only every tenth day could they shed the skins. They were the sons of kings. Sigmund and Sinfjotli put the skins on and could not get them off. And the weird power was there as before; they howled like wolves, both understanding the sounds” (44).

This passage describes the ability to “skin-change” into a wolf by literally wearing a wolf’s skin. This version of ‘skin-changing’ is picked up and adapted in two of Martin’s fictional works: his short story “In the Lost Lands” (1982) and his novella The Skin-Trade (1988).

Illustration of Grey Alys from George R. R. Martin’s ‘In the Lost Lands’ (1982).

In Martin’s short story, a character named Boyce travels into the formidable ‘Lost Lands’ to the north, which constitute an endless frozen wilderness, with a witch named Grey Alys (who borrows heavily from mythology of Freya, especially with regard to her cloak of feathers).

I won’t spoil the ending for those who haven’t yet and might be interested in reading this text, except to say that lycanthropy appears initially as a physical transformation, but by the end we learn that wearing the skin of a werewolf can produce the same metamorphosis for those whom the transformation isn’t biological.

George R. R. Martin, ‘Skin Trade,’ cover of graphic novel adapted by Daniel Abraham and illustrated by Mike Wolfer (2014).

Similarly, in his later novella, The Skin-Trade, Martin establishes a world in which both biology and werewolf skin-wearing can result in lycanthropy. Werewolf fans may be happy to learn that The Skin-Trade is currently ‘in development’ by Cinemax under the direction of scriptwriter Kalinda Vazquez, who has written for other TV series such as Prison Break (2005) and Once Upon a Time (2011). However, particularly because there is currently no clear sense as to when Cinemax and Vazquez will have their version of The Skin-Trade ready for the silver screen, it may still be a while before there is a werewolf series to rival HBO’s True Blood or AMC’s The Walking Dead.

Richard Fahey
PhD Candidate
Department of English
University of Notre Dame


Online Resources

Pliny the Elder’s Natural History (8.80-4)

Petronius’ Satyricon (62)

Marie de France’s Bisclavret 

Gerald of Wales’ Topographica Hibernica

Hrólfs saga kraka

Vǫlsunga saga


Translations

Byock, Jesse. The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki. London, England: Penguin Books, 1998.

Byock, Jesse. The Saga of the Volsungs. London, England: Penguin Books, 1999.

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Monstrous Ethiopians? Racial Attitudes and Exoticism in the Old English ‘Wonders of the East’

The flare of recent racial tensions, especially in the wake of the Trump administration’s xenophobic rhetoric, has had repercussions in Charlottesville and across the United States. White nationalist organizations, such as the Alt-Right, have become the face of this hatred and have renewed national concern about the nature of race relations and prejudices in the United States. And of course, the internet has opened new windows and doors into impressionable minds and offered these groups new ways to the spread their toxic rhetoric.

As medievalists it is especially important that we do our part to counter the way in which White supremacist organizations, who have historically appropriated medieval literature into their rhetoric of hatred. It falls especially to Anglo-Saxonists, who have historically been caught in an unfortunate web of association with White Supremacist rhetoric, to explicitly set the record straight and to offer alternative models of medieval thinking about race and ethnicity. The fact is that 20th century Anglo-Saxonist scholarship has intellectually contributed—even helped to create—the romantic idea of the ‘Germanic hero’ (whether in the paragons of Beowulf or Siegfried), and without the work of literary and linguistic scholars of Germanic philology, Hitler’s Nazi rhetoric regarding the racial superiority of an imaged ‘Aryan race’ may not have been possible or at the very least may not have had the same type of intellectual traction.

Moreover, the persistent assumption that medieval people in Europe were necessarily racist, and that they collectively held attitudes of racial superiority congruent with modern White supremacist groups, is both dangerous and non-factual. This assumption contributes to the narrative that ethnic Europeans always considered themselves to be somehow cultural better than their neighbors to the south and east. With all this in mind, I wish to return to the sources—to a medieval text from Anglo-Saxon England—in order to reflect on racial attitudes and prejudices in so far as the text presents them. My discussion will center primarily the Old English The Wonders of the East, an Anglo-Saxon translation of the Latin De rebus in Oriente mirabilbus, which catalogues wondrous places, peoples and creatures from far way lands, generally somewhere in Africa or Asia.

Scholars Susan M. Kim and Asa Mittman have argued that Anglo-Saxon audiences would have likely considered the wonders described in the texts as truly existing and point out that, “the very status of the Wonders as wonders implies at once the stretching of possibility, and an insistence on the viability of the same possibility, at once the incredibility and the truth of the narrative” (1), leading to the conclusion that “the Anglo-Saxon readers and viewers of these texts probably considered them true” (2). The British Library agrees and states in their blog, describing the monsters illustrated in the Wonders: “belief in the existence of monstrous races of human beings was central to medieval thinking, although almost everything about them was open to debate and discussion.”

Marvels depicted in the Old English ‘Wonders of the East,’ BL Cotton Vitellius a.xv, f. 101r.

The Liber Monstrorum, a Latin text similarly interested in monsters and wonders and which Michael Lapidge has argued was composed in Anglo-Saxon England, presents his marvels with more skepticism. Its opening disclaimer casts serious doubt regarding the veracity of many of the marvels described and offers an alternative perspective noting that quaedam tantum in ipsis mirabilibus uera esse creduntur “only certain things in the wonders are believed to be true” and that most may in fact be rumoroso sermone tamen ficta “nevertheless rumor by false speech.”

But, what about when one encounters a ‘wonder’ in a medieval text which (however distortedly) attempts to discuss a group of people or species of animal, which does exist in places far from Europe? What does it say about racial attitudes in Anglo-Saxon England if an ethnic group—such as Ethiopians—is included in a catalogue of monsters? How might we read this?

Before we get to the passage describing the sigelwara ‘Ethiopians,’ let’s begin by briefly discussing the text as a whole and some of the other wonders in the collection. The Old English Wonders is found in two manuscripts, (BL, Cotton Tiberius b.v and BL, Cotton Vitellius a.xv—often called the Nowell Codex or simply the Beowulf-manuscript). One of the monstrous people included in the text is the blemmyae, known explicitly from the Latin source text but left unnamed in the Old English Wonders. What makes these people wondrous is their unusual physical appearance. It is said of these people:

The blemmyae depicted in the Old English ‘Wonders of the East,’ BL, Cotton Vitellius a.xv, f. 102v.
Old English Prose Modern English Translation
Þonne syndon oþre ealond suð from Brixonte, on þon beoð men acende buton heafdum, þa habbað on hyra breostum heora eagan ond muð. Hy seondon eahta fota lange ond eahta fota brade. Ðar beoð dracan cende þa beoð on lenge hundteontige fot-mæl longe and fiftiges; hy beoð greate swa stænene sweras micle. For þara dracaena micelnesse ne mæg nan man na yþelice on þæt land gefaran. Then there is another island, south of the Brixontes, on which there are born men without heads who have their eyes and mouth in their chests. They are eight feet tall and eight feet wide. There are dragons born there which are one hundred and fifty feet in length, and are as thick as great stone pillars. Because of the abundance of the dragons, no one can journey easily in that land.

The blemmyae are pretty unbelievable by modern standards, and today we would recognize such creatures as a fiction or fabrication derived more likely from the imagination than from experience. Emphasis is on the peculiar placement of his face and his enormous size, which is followed up by the corresponding reference to the enormous dragons also found in the wondrous domain of the blemmyae.

Physical description is front and center in the description of the panotii, another unnamed people known from the Latin source text. The panotii are described as follows:

The panotii depicted in Old English ‘Wonders of the East,’ BL, Cotton Vitellius a.xv, f. 104r.
Old English Prose Modern English Translation
Þonne is east þær beoð men acende þa beoð on wæstme fiftyne fota lange ond x on brade. Hy habbað micel heafod ond earan swæ fon. Oþer eare hy him on niht underbredað, ond mid oþran hy wreoð him. Beoð þa earan swiðe leohte ond hy beoð swa on lic-homan swa white swa meolc. Gyf hy hwilcne mannan on þæm lande geseoð oðþe ongytað, þonne nymað hy hyra earan him on hand ond fleoð swiðe, swa hrædlece swa is wen þæt hy fleogen. Going east from there is a place where people are born who are in size fifteen feet tall and ten broad. They have large heads and ears like fans. They spread one ear beneath them at night, and they wrap themselves with the other. Their ears are very light and their bodies are as white as milk. And if they see or perceive someone in their lands, they take their ears in their hands and flee far, so quickly that the belief is that they flew.

These wondrous people are likewise described as monstrous in size and are identified by their unusual facial features, namely large heads and fan-shaped ears. They are described also as having milky white bodies, and so here reference to skin color is one of the ways in which the text physically depicts and characterizes the racialized panotii. The passage goes on to describe their peculiar sleeping habits and speedy flight whenever they sense anyone in their territory.

Another group of people, described in the Wonders as hostes, Latin for ‘enemies,’ are also described firstly by their physical features—in this case their huge size and dark skin—and only after is the reference to their cannibalism.

The hostes depicted in the Old English ‘Wonders of the East,’ BL Cotton Vitellius a.xv, f. 102r.
Old English Prose Modern English Translation
Begeondan Brixonte ðære ea, east þonon beoð men acende lange ond micle, þa habbað fet ond sconcan xiifota lange, sidan mid breostum seofan fota lange. Hi beoð sweartes hiwes, ond Hostes hy synd nemned. Cuþlice swa hwlycne man swa hi læccað, þonne fretað hi hyne. Beyond the River Brixontes, east from there, there are people born big and tall, who have feet and shanks twelve feet long, flanks with chests seven feet long. They are of dark color, and are called Hostes. As surely as they catch someone they devour him.

In this passage, we are told of a people who are to a certain extent characterized by skin color, and so the racial element has now come into play—even violent racialization. In this example, we have reference to a group of dark-skinned cannibals. Still, it seems that, at least according the Wonders, the monstrous hostes are to be feared not because of their “race” or the color of their skin, but rather on account of their potentially life-threatening behavior. Nevertheless, this is a clear racialization and monsterization of the gigantic Hostes.

Another reference to dark-skinned people in the Wonders describes a group who live upon a marvelous mountain:

Old English Prose Modern English Translation
Ðonne is oðer dun þær syndon swearte menn, ond nænig oðer man to ðam mannum geferan mag forðam þe seo dun byð eall byrnende. Then there is another mountain where there are dark people, and no one else can travel to those people because the mountain is everywhere burning.

Here what seems wondrous is the mountain, described as ‘everywhere burning’ and possibly the fact that these people are able to live in such an inhospitable environment. While this is certainly a racialization of these peoples, I would suggest that what is being most marveled at is the mountain and the way it protects these inhabitants, and perhaps least of all that these people are described as swearte—‘swarthy’ or ‘dark’ in Old English.

Which brings us, at long last, to the passage on sigelwara or ‘Ethiopians’ in the Wonders, which begins not with reference to these people, but rather to the nearby marvelous trees, on which gemstones are said to grow.

The sigelwara depicted in the Old English ‘Wonders of the East,’ BL Cotton Vitellius a.xv, 106v.
Old English Prose Modern English Translation
Ðonne is treowcyn on þæm þa deorwyrþystan stanas synd of acende, þonon hy growað. Þær þa moncyn is seondan sweartes hyiwes on onsyne, þa mon hateð sigelwara. Then, there is a kind of tree, which grows there, on which the most precious stones sprout. There is also a group of people there of dark color in appearance, who are called Ethiopians (sigelwara).

Indeed it is the jewel-producing trees, which are the true wonder in this section, and the reference to the sigelwara appears as something of an afterthought, though they are characterized entirely based on their skin color, and therefore highly racialized. This physical feature is mentioned before the text promptly transitions to the next wonder in the collection.

Nevertheless, the Old English Wonders refers to Ethiopians in its list of marvels, and I would argue the text is most guilty of exoticism as it reflects a sense of wonder about different groups of people without any reference to respective racial superiority or inferiority. That these people were from a far away place and are described as visually different seems only to heighten the interest and intrigue. In other words, the Ethiopians are a wondrous people.

It is true that with the Wonders, we have a text that racializes and characterizes groups of people based on their physical characteristics, and so the text is—or at least can be read as—racist in this sense. However, it is important to note that white-skinned people are just as wondrous (or monstrous) as dark-skinned people in the text, primarily made marvelous by their status as strange, foreign and other. The Wonders demonstrates medieval fascination with the exotic and the marvelous, and the spatial orientation of the text may even reflect a desire to be elsewhere. Indeed, certainly in Anglo-Saxon England as with most of medieval Europe, people considered themselves to be living in something of a cultural backwater, and places to the south and east (whether cities such as Rome, Constantinople, Baghdad, or regions such as Ethiopia or India) were considered culturally superior in that they were places full of knowledge and wonders.

While the Old English Wonders of the East should by no means be taken as a representative of all medieval people’s perception or interest in exotic wonders (as no single text could), it nevertheless tells a somewhat different story about racial attitudes in Anglo-Saxon England than the narratives pushed by modern Neo-Nazi and White Supremacist groups, who we all know are the real monsters.

Richard Fahey
PhD Candidate
Department of English
University of Notre Dame


Works Cited:

British Library’s “Monsters and Marvels in the Beowulf Manuscript” (2013).

Fulk, R. D. The Beowulf Manuscript. Dumbarton Oaks, 2010: 16-31.

Kim, Susan M. and Asa Mittman. “Ungefrægelicu deor: Truth and the Wonders of the East.” Different Visions: A Journal of New Perspectives on Medieval Art 2 (2010): 1-22. 

Mittman, Asa Simon. ‘Are the ‘monstrous races’ races?’ Postmedieval 6:1 (2015):  36-51.

Orchard, Andy. Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf Manuscript. 1995.

MANSCRIPT SHELFMARKS:

London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius b.v fols.78v-87r.

London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius a.xv fols.98v-106.

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Grendelkin

Most of us in the English-speaking world have read Beowulf, in translation and in high school. It is generally taught as an ancient text with insights into Anglo-Saxon culture, whispering from our distant past. But can these whispers speak meaningfully to us today, aside from mining historical gems from the text?

Beowulf is a medieval poem about heroes and monsters. But it also a poem cautioning against the destructive forces of violence and greed, the very same combination of forces which most trouble the world today.

For those who read the text in the original language, Beowulf is a playful, at times suspenseful, poem which masks its monsters in ambiguous language and draws verbal parallels between the heroic protagonists and their monstrous antagonists in ways that challenge a reader’s assumptions. And, of course, it was performed!

Are there ways of performing Beowulf, which speak both to then and now? This is the mission behind Grendelkin.

“Grendelkin” at Notre Dame, produced by Richard Fahey and sponsored by the Medieval Institute.

Grendelkin is an upcoming two day production sponsored by Notre Dame’s Medieval Institute, which seeks to highlight the ethical concerns expressed in Beowulf through professional storytelling and avant-garde performance. Grendelkin interrogates the function of reciprocal and sanctioned violence within the text and challenges tribalism and the warrior ethos of the poem, while keeping a modern audience and their contemporary concerns in focus.

Cost: The event is free (no ticket charge) and open to the public. Tickets will be given at the door and programs will be available at the venue.

Dates: 4/7 & 4/8, 2017

Time: 7:30-9:00 with refreshment the following hour both evenings

Place: Washington Hall (third floor), University of Notre Dame


Event Schedule and Artist Biographies:

DAY 1 (Friday, 4/7): Beowulf: A Poem for Our Time
Performance by Chris Vinsonhaler

An award-winning performance, Beowulf: A Poem for Our Time, will roar to life on Friday, April 7, in a program that is free and open to the public. This performance frames her version of Beowulf in both an Anglo-Saxon historical context and in conversation with contemporary current events and cultural knowledge.

The general public is invited, and high school classes are expressly invited. However, because of the sophisticated and violent content, the performance is recommended for adults and young adults only.

Awarded a fellowship funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, Chris Vinsonhaler is an internationally touring artist who also serves as a professor with the City University of New York.

Chris Vinsonhaler performing her piece “Beowulf: A Poem for Our Time.”

Her performance work has received praise from scholars, poets, teachers, storytellers, and armchair readers. “You made Beowulf come alive even for those who hated reading it,” said Rosemary DePaolo, President of the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. “You made the audience feel that Beowulf, Grendel, and Hrothgar were with us—in the room, and in our time.”

“Vinsonhaler’s Beowulf bristles with an energy and enthusiasm that is both captivating and infectious,” said Andy Orchard, Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University.

“Beowulf does indeed have something for everyone,” said Vinsonhaler. “It is a dazzling work of poetry, and it is also a knock-em, sock-em piece of pop culture about a Dark Ages super hero. It is somber and thought-provoking, but it is also a lot of fun. That’s what great storytelling has always been about.”

Yet those who are familiar with Beowulf should expect to be surprised. “Beowulf has many surprises in store,” Vinsonhaler said. “The poem is ironic, subversive, grotesque, and darkly comic; and it may even lay claim to be the world’s first murder mystery. Yet, above all, Beowulf is a prophetic work about the death of nations. It presents a world overshadowed by the image of a burning tower and by monstrous acts of avarice, envy, deceit, and revenge. It is very much a poem for our time.”

Now fifteen years into the project, Vinsonhaler has completed a Ph.D. in pursuit of the project. And she believes the secret of the poem is revealed through performance.

“As a professional storyteller, I wondered what would happen if Beowulf were seriously examined and interpreted through performance. Although many questions remain unanswered, one thing that is almost certainly true: Beowulf was meant to be heard, not read. What excites me most, and what I hope to share with others, is that the poem does indeed take on a life of its own when returned to spoken form.”

Chris Vinsonhaler is currently working to revise her translation and has a website designed to help students of Beowulf access the “bones” of the language in order to better understand the poem and its performed context.


DAY 2 (Saturday, 4/8): Haunting Tales of Grendelkin

Act 1: Giedd in Geardagum “Songs of Yore”
Recitations by Richard Fahey
with instrumentation accompaniment by Chris Vinsonhaler (harp)

This first act will be comprised of three recitations of short episodes from Beowulf in the original Old English language and accompanied by the bardic harp.

  1. The Lay of Scyld “Terror and Tribute” is the first of the three lays, and the shortest. Scyld’s Lay establishes a paradigm for heroic kingship in the poem. It tells of the heroic deeds of Scyld Sceffing, as he terrorizes the surrounding nations and exacts his tribute from them.
  2. The Lay of Sigemund “Murder and Plunder” is the second lay in the series, and tells of the heroic deeds of Sigemund (from the Vǫlsunga saga and associated literature), especially his slaying of a mighty dragon and plundering his treasure. This episode foreshadows the later dragon episode and describes Sigemund in terms similar to the monsters in the poem.
  3. Grendel’s Approach “Becoming a Monster” is the last section of Beowulf, and describes how Grendel comes from the dark night, through the swamps and into the hall to feast on the men there. Grendel’s Approach isolates the terrifying moments in which the monster finally arrives and confronts both characters and readers for the first time in the narrative.
Richard Fahey, PhD candidate in English at the University of Notre Dame

Richard Fahey is a PhD candidate in the English Department at the University of Notre Dame where his research interests include monstrosity, syncretism, rhetoric and intertextuality in Old English, Old Norse literature and Anglo-Latin literature. In addition to producing Grendelkin, Richard is currently working on his dissertation “Enigmatic Æglacan: Riddling the Beowulf-monsters” which brings the Exeter Book riddles into conversation with Beowulf through lexicographical and stylistic analysis. Richard is also an editor and contributor to Notre Dame’s medievalist blog The Chequered Board and for the affiliate Old English Poetry translation and recitation project.

Act 2: Sceadugenga
Avant-garde performance by ❨❨❨:: Of The Sun ::❩❩❩
with instrumentation by Tom Fahey, Adam Blake and CJ Carr
and dance accompaniment by Wisty Andres, embodying the character of Grendel

Boston sound artist Tom ‘Totem’ Fahey started working with sound and becoming invested in music as far back as elementary school. Forming several bands in his youth, he eventually found himself at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in the S.I.M. program [Studio for Interrelated Media]. Here he took to avant-garde compositions and developed his ear and vision for studio and live event production.

Since then Tom has performed in numerous projects ranging from folk music to experimental noise to black metal, and has done various sound installations and sound design work for local artists and musicians. Tom has worked also as art director for Boston’s annual New Year’s art festival First Night from 2011-2015.

(((::OF THE SUN::))) was started in June 2010 by Tom Fahey and Adam Blake from the ashes of an experimental improvisational sound project called Fractillian, which performed around the Boston area from 2007- 2010. Having taken on the visual projection art of Andrew Goldman, they performed live for the first time in November 2010. (((::OF THE SUN::))) is influenced by Norwegian Black Metal and avant-garde Drone music.

Boston sound artists “❨❨❨:: Of The Sun ::❩❩❩ performing two acts in Grendelkin.

Shortly after forming, the vocal and performative force of CJ Carr joined Fahey and Blake and they performed as a trio for the first time in February of 2011.

In 2012 (((::OF THE SUN::)) started performing with acro-yoga artists Adam Giangregorio and Nicole Leland, which became a regular part of the experience, and in 2015 joined forces with the movement artist Wisty, performing with Grendelkin.

Wisty Andres, originally from Tokyo, Japan, started dancing in Columbus, OH at age 7. She has trained in classical ballet, modern, jazz, latin dancing, stilting, and tumbling. She is an alumna of Interlochen Arts Academy where she performed Les Patineurs, Sleeping Beauty, Viva Vivaldi, Serenade, and other classical and contemporary works. Andres holds an AA in Dance from New World School of the Arts College in Miami, FL.

Wisty Andres, Boston performing artist in ❨❨❨:: Of The Sun ::❩❩❩ and Grendelkin.

Andres moved to Boston in June 2013 and performed solo work (Satta under Vatten) at the Boston Contemporary Dance Festival 2013 and has also been involved in several projects with 1000virtuesdance since July 2013. Andres previously worked with Penumbra:Movement as a guest choreographer at the 2014 Dance for World Community Festival and a guest artist in the 2014 Spring aMaSSit concert.

Andres is currently dancing with Urbanity Dance Underground Company, and also a dancer and Resident Choreographer for Penumbra:Movement. She has been presenting works all over the Greater Boston Area as an independent choreographer in various venues, including NACHMO Boston 2014 and 2015, Third Life Studios Choreographer Series, Urbanity NEXT showcases, and Green Street Studios.

The second act, Sceadugenga is inspired by Grendel’s haunting approach to Heorot, and the psychology and mythology surrounding a monster. This piece incorporates the Old English language and raises some of the questions discussed in the current scholarship.


Act 3: Umberhulk
Avant-garde performance by ❨❨❨:: Of The Sun ::❩❩❩
with instrumentation by Tom Fahey, Adam Blake and CJ Carr
and dance accompaniment by Wisty Andres, embodying the character of Grendel

❨❨❨:: Of The Sun ::❩❩❩ performing with Shri Rajuli at “First Night” Boston, TRIBE VIBE (12/31/14).

For those interested in previewing a performance, there is video footage corresponding with the above image of❨❨❨:: Of The Sun ::❩❩❩ performing their song “Light” at Boston’s “First Night” in an event called Tribe Vibe.

The third act, Umberhulk, explores the parallelisms between heroes and monsters, such as is found in descriptions of Beowulf and Grendel during their epic battle in the hall.


​​Act 4: Wrecend 
Movement art piece by Shri Rajuli
with instrumentation accompaniment by Tom Fahey (drums and throat singing)
to music by Eivør Pálsdóttir

“Shri” Rajuli (Rajuli Khetarpal Fahey) dances with a spirit that is rooted and ancient. Every movement piece is a ritual for Rajuli. Over time, a fusion of movement influences from around the world has blossomed into her ever evolving dance style, which Rajuli describes as “Temple Tribal Fusion.”

Rajuli has performed and taught for over ten years. She has studied and collaborated with dance professionals all across America. Rajuli is an active movement and installation artist from Boston, and received BFA with Distinction from the Studio for Interrelated Media from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and is a Rachel Brice 8 Elements Initiate. Her movement art incorporates elements of Indian folk, Ballet, Jazz, African, Haitian, Flamenco, Gothic, Butoh and Modern and modern dance style.

Movement artist Shri Rajuli. Rajuli will be performing her piece “Wrecend” and embodying the character of Grendel’s mother.

Rajuli has produced movement art shows in the past, such as her recent event Immaculate Portal (7/22/15), which celebrates the experience and journey of motherhood through interpretive dance. Links to additional performances may be found on her website.

Rajuli will be performing the final act of the evening, her piece titled Wrecend, which explore the experience of maternal loss and grief from the perspective of Grendel’s mother.

After the final act, there will be a brief panel discussion of performers in Grendelkin, discussing their art in relation and conversation with some trends in scholarship. At this time, audience feedback and questions are welcomed!

Whether you are a medievalist, an artist, an educator or an enthusiast, we hope you will join us for Grendelkin!

Special thanks to Chris Abram, John Van Engen, Thomas Burman, Megan Hall, Peter Holland, Sara Maurer, the English Graduate School, and especially the Medieval Institute for their support of this project.

Richard Fahey
Art Director and Producer
PhD Candidate
Department of English
University of Notre Dame

 

Resources for accessing Beowulf in Old English and its manuscript context

Critical edition: Frederick Klaeber’s critical edition
Student edition: George Jack’s student edition
Electronic edition: Kevin Kiernan’s electronic edition
Digitized Manuscript: British Library, Cotton Vitellius A.xv (Nowell Codex).