Hrothgar and Hryllingur, part XXII
The final installment of Somhairle na Dagney's version of Beowulf.
If you're new to this serialization, here's the link to the introductory post, which now has the complete table of contents. Or you can read the complete poem here.
Then rang the rafters!
All rejoiced; Bjarndýr’s bold boast
Fulfilled. Merry the men,
The dark mere-monster driven
Desolate to its doom.
Wounded, wailing, went
Hryllingur, seeking his fell holt
Far from Heorot; hidden deep
Midst mere and mire, defeated,
Weeping, his death to meet.
Wave and water took
The creature; fumbling footprints led
To lake’s edge, the black blood-beads’ trail
Told men the monster’s end: drowned
In the tarn’s darkest depth.
Old men and young saw
Proof of Hryllingur’s passing; praised
With pride Bjarndýr’s deeds; north or south
No warrior’s worth was greater,
No weapon better wielded.
Feasting followed; fair
Maids and men made merry; song
And stories told of heroes past,
Bjarndýr held high among that host,
Of mighty men of old:
Worthy of kingship he!
But so their liege, Heorot’s lord,
Grey-bearded Hrothgar, wise in years
To yield his hall’s saving to one
Stronger. All praise the king!
Mind their memory;
Drink to their deeds;
Remember this song I have sung.
And here Sorley’s version ends. Will he hear the continuation at some later point, and keep writing? I don’t know, at this point.
The more pressing question is what else do I do with this retelling? Let me know what you think - and my most sincere thanks to all who have read it. It was a challenge, and a lot of fun.
Find my books at Scarlet Ferret or other on-line bookstores.
I’d maybe double up on it a bit? Publish the poem as a stand-alone, but as a way to reference the larger story; then use the larger story to do likewise for the poem. And there’s also something like audio to explore that could be a separate thing, too, if you were interested.
Either way, do anything at all with it and I’d love to pick up a copy!
If you were feeling really energetic, you could use the poem as the framework for a novella or an even longer story. Take a chunk of it as an intro to the chapter then when you get to this point, carry it on with the monster's mum, and make up what happened next. Was she killed or did she creep off to nurse her wounds? Was she the monster who finally killed the Beowulf character, and was there a lot more story in-between? Just an idea if you have a half a year to spare :)