Storytelling: Finnesburg
Fragmenthttps://drive.google.com/file/d/1JN72JkuqJTR4gTEKvJnFJmhZUS7Px2xw/view?usp=sharing
The source of my story for this assignment is the Finnesburg Fragment from the Beowulf manuscripts. The tale itself is only partially found within the manuscripts, the pages that continue the story have since been destroyed due to time and a fire within the library where they were stored at centuries ago. The authors of Beowulf and the Finnesburg Fragment are unknown. The most commonly accepted source is attributing Beowulf stories as oral narratives which became written down well after their creation. Within Beowulf, the Swedish-Geatish wars are described and have some historical backing on the events and characters that appeared compared to real life events that are known of the time. This places the time frame of when the story could have first been written at around the 12th to 13th century CE.
The Finnesburg Fragment is often apart from the main text of the Beowulf manuscripts. The story does not take place within the setting of Beowulf and does not appear as a story that someone within that tale is telling, the Tragedy of Hildeburh is told in story within Beowulf and as such is included within its main text in translations. Within the text, the story describes an attack at night at the city of Finnesburg, or the city of Finn. Finn is the ruler of the Frisians and had married a woman named Hildeburh in order to make peace between the Frisians and the Danes. Yet this was not enough to stop the conflict outright and the Danes attacked Finnesburg. The story focuses around Hnaef, Hildeburh’s brother, who holds the hall with 50 strong warriors over the course of 5 days onslaught. During this time in history, combat was usually during the daylight hours and very short durations of a few hours at most. Having this combat supposedly last days on end is to evoke how grueling and still brave the Frisian men were in protecting their home.
The story does not have a proper end here within the Finnesburg Fragment. The story finishes as we know it as a wounded warrior turns to his leader, Hnaef, and declares his armor and weapons are in tatters and he can no longer continue fighting. The story of Hildeburh is continued in Beowulf itself. We find out that her family was slaughtered and only she remains alive after the battle ended. She mourns the loss of her brother and her husband at funeral pyres for each. She is then taken away back to the Danes.
This story can be used to describe epic poetry or specifically epic poetry originally in English. The great epics most known are Greek tales but Beowulf and the Finnesburg Fragment are something which can be more accessible to people than the myriad of monsters that The Odyssey has or the focus on war that The Iliad has. Beowulf contains those portions of a plot but within a shorter time frame. Focusing on just Finnesburg, the story is about men in a small span of time and about the conflict itself. This focused narrative keeps the audience interested as it is full of action and a lot of ‘proclaiming’ by different characters to one another. It all feels as if you are also going into battle with them. The physical material of the manuscript can be printed out and shown to patrons of the library to see how these stories were maintained over the centuries through scribes and how the language of English developed from Old English to Modern English. I have included my own translation below which is what I read from in the video. This includes the Finnesburg Fragment and the Tragedy of Hildeburh (which I did not read but felt to include to get the full story.)
