The Battle of Finnesburh

This poem was printed by George Hickes in his monumental Thesaurus of the early Germanic languages and literatures (1703–05) from a single detached leaf which he had found in a manuscript of homilies in the Lambeth Palace library. Unfortunately, the leaf was immediately lost—even Humfrey Wanley, whose catalogue of Old English manuscripts forms a part of the Thesaurus, seems not to have seen it. All modern editions are therefore based on Hickes, who seems to have made significant errors in transcribing the text.

Despite its fragmentary condition and the textual difficulties, The Battle of Finnesburh is of the highest interest to students of Old English, for it tells part of a story also told with maddening allusiveness in Beowulf ll. 1071–1159, the so-called Finn Episode. The action takes place while the Danish king Hnæf, with a contingent of Danish warriors, is visiting his sister Hildeburh, who is married to the Frisian king Finn. The fragment tells how the Frisians attack Hnæf and his men in their guest hall, and it narrates their heroic defense: they hold out for five days before anyone is wounded. The episode in Beowulf takes up after this battle, with a depiction of the mourning of Hildeburh, who has lost her brother and at least two sons. Both the Danish and the Frisian forces have been severely depleted, so that neither is able to finish off or drive out the other. Finn offers terms to the Danes, now led by Hengest: for the coming winter they will share a single hall, Finn will treat the Danes as if they were his own retainers, giving them gifts every day, and will guarantee that no Frisian taunts the Danes for following their lord’s killer. Finn takes oaths to seal the bargain and follows through by distributing gold from his hoard. Hildeburh mourns as the Danish and Frisian dead are cremated on a single pyre, and then the two sides settle down to spend a tense winter together. Finn’s gifts fail to placate the aggrieved Danes, one of whom, when spring comes, lays a famous sword (perhaps the one owned by Hnæf) in Hengest’s lap while others speak their grievances aloud. Roused to action, Hengest and his followers kill Finn, loot his dwelling, and carry Hildeburh with them back to Denmark.

This story, the details of which are endlessly disputed by scholars, seems to have been well known to the Anglo-Saxons: Hnæf and Finn were known to the poets of not only Beowulf and The Battle of Finnesburh, but also the catalogue poem Widsith. Those who wish to study the story further can find much material in Tolkien 1982, Fry 1974, and Fulk, Bjork and Niles 2008.