Beowulf and the North before the Vikings

by Tom Shippey

Ever since Tolkien’s famous lecture in 1936, it has been generally accepted that the poem Beowulf is a fantasy, and of no use as a witness to real history. This book challenges that view, and argues that the poem provides a plausible, detailed, and consistent vision of pre-Viking history which is most unlikely to have been the poet’s invention, and which has moreover received strong corroboration from archaeology in recent years. Using the poem as a starting point, historical, archaeological, and legendary sources are combined to form a picture of events in the North in the fifth and sixth centuries, at once a Dark and a Heroic Age, and the time of the formation of nations. Among other things, this helps answer two long-unasked questions. Why did the Vikings come as such a shock? And what caused the previous 250 years of security from raiders from the sea?

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Archaeology, Anglo Saxon, Medieval

136 pages, Paperback

Published August 31, 2022

About the author

Thomas Alan Shippey is a British medievalist, a retired scholar of Middle and Old English literature as well as of modern fantasy and science fiction. He is considered one of the world's leading academic experts on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien about whom he has written several books and many scholarly papers. His book The Road to Middle-Earth has been called "the single best thing written on Tolkien".

Shippey's education and academic career have in several ways retraced those of Tolkien: he attended King Edward's School, Birmingham, became a professional philologist, occupied Tolkien's professorial chair at the University of Leeds, and taught Old English at the University of Oxford to the syllabus that Tolkien had devised.

He has received three Mythopoeic Awards and a World Fantasy Award. He participated in the creation of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, assisting the dialect coaches. He featured as an expert medievalist in all three of the documentary DVDs that accompany the special extended edition of the trilogy, and later also that of The Hobbit film trilogy.

Also publishes as T.A. Shippey.

Reviews

[Andrew Higgins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anything by Dr.Tom Shippey is excellent and this is Tom at his best. A stellar work of inquiry and scholarship by a giant in both Beowulf and Tolkien studies. Must read.

[Gregory Amato · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent companion reader to Beowulf itself. This book is chock-full of interesting insights into the text right alongside archeological information for corroboration. Highly recommended for anyone who has ever been curious about what was going on in the fifth and sixth centuries in Britain, Northern Germany, and Scandinavia.

[Joseph Leake]

Very intriguing ideas here, and ones that, if valid, have major bearings on Beowulf and a whole host of interrelated topics (Iron Age Scandinavia, the "adventus Saxonum," the spread and preservation of oral legend). I'm both sympathetic to and excited by these ideas—but their substantiation requires a much greater treatment of the evidence and secondary scholarship than is provided by this slender book. Not all of Shippey's conclusions necessarily follow from the evidence, and there's some cherry-picking—none of which means Shippey is wrong, but, again, the claims need to be weighed and examined with a lot more depth.

Shippey is one of my favorite authors, and his works on Tolkien, medievalism, and medieval literature have been personally formative (and long a source of both pleasure and edification). Some hallmarks of his writings on full display here: his engaging and at times wryly witty style; his perspicacity; and his ability to show you what's exciting and intriguing about the subject matter.

[Dave Maddock · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute joy! Will update this later with a proper review.

[Rowdy Geirsson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is just really well-done, short overview of Beowulf's historic and literary connections to Scandinavia (it is a pocket paperback sized book only 124 pages long). The book ties together recent research in archaeology with more than a century's worth of studies of Beowulf on its literary and historic merits to present a very plausible historic context of the poem (meaning the people and events mentioned in the poem as background to all the monster-slaying ongoings, rather than the context in which the poem was composed/written--though that is touched upon a bit, too).

That said, it's not a very easy read, especially when characters with similar names are discussed (but that just comes with the territory). There were also a few typeos scattered throughout. All in all not a huge deal, but on occasion these errors alter the intended meaning (for example, one conflated Götaland/Gothland/Geatland with the island of Gotland). All in all, I found the book to do an excellent job of what it sets out to do. It's a compelling read that paints a fascinating picture of the world in which Beowulf does his adventuring.

[Rupertus Gondobarensis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tom Shippey’s Beowulf and the North Before the Vikings is a provocative and spirited reclamation of Beowulf's potential as a mirror not only of poetic imagination but of early Scandinavian history, arguing that the poem's geographical, dynastic, and cultural details align too closely with archaeological evidence to be mere invention.

In just over a hundred pages, he pushes back against Tolkien's injunction to treat Beowulf as fantasy, exploring how the poem may echo post-Roman power dynamics, tribal integration, and a 'century of calm' preceding the Viking shock, suggesting that the poet's memory preserved a coherent political world lost to prose histories.

Shippey's prose is accessible and engaging, weaving philology, legend, and material culture into bold historical reconstructions, though readers may (or mayn't!) quibble with the speculative leaps at its margins.

[Austin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most exciting scholarly book I’ve read in a long time. The author has been most of his long life in study and is so conversant with the last 70 years of scholarship, archaeology, conjectures, debates, and coincidences around Beowulf. The idea of reaching back into a time and place of minimal written records to find names and insights is fascinating. I greatly appreciate his willingness to associate compatible coincidences into a speculative narrative and chronology for examination rather than simply negating the merits of our limited writings from these “Dark Ages.”

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beowulf and the North before the Vikings looks at whether the Beowulf tale is a piece of fiction or a legitimate part of the historical record. Shippey offers evidence in a way that is often entertaining but, because I lack too much knowledge to understand him at times, also befuddling. Once I gave myself permission to be a bit lost, I enjoyed his presentation of his thesis. I will probably reread this one the next time I reread Beowulf.

[Liam · Rating 5 out of 5]

You need to read this, if you can understand me. I’ve always found understanding my own language a fun task, and of course that involves going back in time to the Heroic Age. Shippey is a fantastic scholar and he explores Beowulf here beautifully.