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others and his inability to interpret correctly the meaning of the signals
around him.
The scop, on the other hand, deduces the poverty of that churl
simply after seeing the run-down condition of his village. He says: “I
have seen the village, but did not ask for meat there . . . I could not take
and leave another’s belly cold” (Oldham 16). This episode and others
like it involving other characters, quickly establish for the reader that the
scop is by far the most credible voice in the novel, and they encourage
the reader to believe the scop’s interpretations over anyone else’s.
Moreover, the scop himself explicitly affirms that he will be a reliable
narrator, despite his personal loyalties and opinions. Speaking of the day
on which his lord was defeated and he became an exile, he says: “That
day brought me nothing but misery and grief, but I am a scop and must
try to see it whole. I must try to see it from all sides, and I should be a
mean and dishonest man if I did not sing the praises of the warrior who
cut down my lord” (Oldham 112). The scop also uses the pig episode to
display his diplomatic talents as well as his deductive powers. When
invited to share in eating the little pig, the scop says, “If you, Hrethric,
son of Hrothgar, inherit your father’s generosity, I am sure you will give
[the ehurl] more than adequate compensation for his loss” (Oldham 18).
Hrethric continues to prove himself a rather weak character,
however: ungenerous, hasty, narrow-minded and cowardly. His father is
weak and depressed and Beowulf is boastful, arrogant and ignorant of
court etiquette, unlike Beowulf in the poem. Indeed we see very few
strong characters in The Raven Waits, save the Danish queen
Wealtheow'^ and the scop himself I find it hard to believe that it is
coincidental that the most admirable and sympathetic characters in this
novel by a woman writer are the woman and the writer. Since Oldham is
crafting her own entry into the text here, I find it reasonable to suppose
that she does so via the characters that most closely resemble herself Fan
Fiction Theory can help us understand why Oldham might feel free to
create a persona to speak for a marginalized perspective in a narrative
that focuses on events and leaves room for the fan-writer to focus on
interiority.
In choosing a male persona, she may be making a concession to
perceived historical accuracy — perhaps she assumes there were few
wandering female scops — but another explanation might be found in
Virginia W oolfs A Room o f One's Own. Just as Shakespeare’s Sister
could not have written his plays because of mitigating material and
historical circumstances, perhaps Oldham reasons it would have been
impossible for a female Beowulf poet to have written the poem.
Moreover, Oldham’s female gender embodied in a male persona echoes