Expecting the Worst: Beowulf and the End Times

This paper proposes a parallel between Beowulf’s address to his warriors before the fight with the dragon and Christ’s address to his disciples on the Mount of Olives known as the Discourse on the End Times (Matthew 24–5). Both speakers are leaders who sit on high ground before an audience of 12 men (one of whom either has or soon will have committed a shameful act) and predict the future, shortly before facing a challenge which will result in their death. I suggest that the evocation of this portion of the gospels at the end of Beowulf is significant in two ways. Firstly, the difference between Beowulf and Christ in their ability to foresee the future points to Beowulf’s limitations, and ultimately to the absence of Christ in the world of the poem. Secondly, I argue that the need for readiness, expressed by the Discourse on the End Times and highlighted by the Old English homilies which paraphrase it, develops as a theme throughout Beowulf, and is part of both the secular code of behaviour practised by the poem’s characters and the latent Christian code of moral vigilance.