Caitlin Kiernan - Beowulf

Beowulf comes to on a small patch of sand in the lee of a boulder, awakened by the chill of the icy waves. For a second, it seems he lies atop the fallen dragon, but then as salt water and foam retreat, he sees that he lies beside the golden man from the merewife’s cave. A terrible wound extends from the man’s throat all the way down his chest to his belly. His eyelids flutter, and then he opens them and stares up at the winter clouds.

“Father?” he coughs. “Are you here? I can’t see you.”

“I’m here,” Beowulf replies weakly. He ignores the pain that seems to radiate from every part of his body and drags himself closer, cradling his son’s head in the crook of his good arm “I’m sorry…”

“Are we dead?” the golden man asks, and blood leaks from his lips.

“Almost,” Beowulf replies, before another wave rushes forward and crashes over them both. Beowulf gasps at the cold, and when the sea recedes again, he is alone on the sand. The golden man is gone, returned to his mother. The King of the Ring-Danes lies back down on the beach, watching the clouds passing by overhead, dimly aware that he has begun to cry, but his tears seem of little consequence here beside the resounding ocean.

I will lie here just a little longer, thinks Beowulf, and then he hears footsteps, the crunch of boots on the pebble-strewn sand. He turns his head, and Wiglaf is walking toward him across the beach.

“You lucky bastard,” mutters Beowulf.

Wiglaf kneels next to him, inspecting the cauterized stump of his right arm.

“I told you we were too old to be heroes,” he says. “Let me get you to a healer.”

“No,” Beowulf tells him, and shakes his head. “Not this time, old friend.”

“You’re Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow,” Wiglaf says. “The scops sing your deeds in all the lands of the world. No way a little thing like this is going to finish you off. That’s not how this story will end.”

“No,” Beowulf tells him again. “I’m done, my Wiglaf. And it is not so bad an ending. It will be a fine enough tale for Gladsheim.”

“Aye,” replies Wiglaf, sitting down and brushing wet hair away from Beowulf’s blood-streaked face. “It will make a fine tale for Odin’s hall, but not this day, my lord. I have a fresh, strong horse, there, just beyond the rocks.”

Beowulf smiles for Wiglaf and closes his eyes, listening to the waves and to something he hears woven in between the waves. It might be the voice of a woman singing, the most beautiful voice he has ever heard.

“Do you hear her?” he asks Wiglaf.

“I hear nothing my lord, but the sea and the wind and the gulls.”

“The song , Wiglaf,” says Beowulf. “It’s Grendel’s mother, the merewife…my son’s mother… my …” but he trails off then, distracted by the pain and uncertain what word he was going to say next, whether it might have been lover or mother , foe or destiny .

He opens his eyes again, for now the song has grown so loud he does not have to try so hard to pick it free of the noise of the sea. Wiglaf is gazing down at him, and Beowulf has never seen Wiglaf look so frightened.

“No, lord. Don’t say such things. You slew Grendel’s mother. When we were yet young men. It’s in the saga—”

“Then the saga is a lie ,” says Beowulf, raising his voice, angry and almost shouting, and he feels something pulling loose inside his chest. “A lie ,” he says again. “Wiglaf, you know it was a lie. You always knew.”

Wiglaf does not say a word, and Beowulf shuts his eyes again, wanting only to listen to the song flowing up from the sea.

“And it is too late for lies,” he whispers. “Too late…”

A wave rushes up the shore, soaking Wiglaf, and when he looks back down at Beowulf’s pale face, Wiglaf realizes that he’s alone on the beach. King Beowulf is dead.

At the center of the world stands the ash Yggdrasil, the greatest and best of all trees, and below the roots of Yggdrasil dwell the three maidens—the Norns—who work always, busy at their looms, spinning and shaping the lives of every man and every woman, weaving what must be from chaos and infinite possibility. Even the gods in Ásgard are only threads in the handiwork of the Norns, and even they, like mortal men and the giants, may not glimpse the threads of their lives or know the judgment of those nimble, tireless fingers. The length of each thread is known only to these three maidens, there below the foundations of the World Ash. And so it was with Beowulf, who sought always the glory and the brave death that must be sought out by those who wish to enter Odin’s hall and fight alongside the gods in the final battle when Ragnarök comes and the children of Loki Skywalker and Shape-Changer are again loosed upon the cosmos. At the moment of his birth, the Norns had already woven the fate of Beowulf, and in all his struggles and on down to the day of his death, he has only ever followed the course of that thread.

Such are the thoughts of the new Lord of the Danes on this winter day, the day of Beowulf’s burial. King Wiglaf, son of Weohstan, the son of a Geatish fishwife, stands alone and apart from all the others who have come to bid the old king fare well. Today he wears the golden crown so recently worn by Beowulf and by King Hrothgar before him, by the line of Hrothgar’s house all the way back to Scyld Sheafson. From his place upon the rocks above the edge of the sea, Wiglaf looks out at the whitecapped waves and setting sun and the funeral ship. It is the same dragon-prowed ship that he and Beowulf and the other Geats sailed across the stormy waters of Jótlandshaf to reach the shores of a demon-haunted land thirty long years ago, and now it will bear Beowulf away on this, his final journey from the walls of Midgard across the span of the Bilröst Bridge.

So many have come—the survivors of the worm’s attack on Heorot and also outlanders from all the four corners of the kingdom of the Ring-Danes. They have gathered upon the rugged shore, silent or whispering among themselves. A young scop stands on the sea cliff not far away from Wiglaf, and his voice is high and clear and drifts out over the dusk-stained beach.

Ten strong thanes take their places, five on either side of the funeral ship. The masts have been rigged full sail, and the evening wind whips and billows in the shrouds. Fourteen of the finest iron battle-shields ever made line both the starboard and larboard wales, and the burial vessel has been heaped with treasure, gold and silver and bronze, and with swords and axes and bows, with helmets and bright mail shirts. All these precious things Beowulf had asked be buried with him, that he might be properly prepared to ride out upon the wide fields of Idavoll. His oaken bier rises from the center of the hoard, and Beowulf lies there, dressed in his best furs and armor.

The thanes strain and heave and finally push the ship down the sand and into the icy surf. At once it is caught in a current that will carry it away from shore by way of a magnificent sea arch, an ancient granite vault carved by wind and rain and the sea herself. There is a company of thanes posted high upon the crest of the towering arch, tending the immense cedar bonfire built there.

Wiglaf takes a deep breath of the cold, salty air, silently saying his good-byes, and watches as the wind and the current ferry the ship beneath the arch of stone. The scop’s voice rises, nearing the end of his song.