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what rests in the heart; my purpose to reveal what I have found, by any
means I can employ” (45).
The Beowulf poet may use the convention of the scop to achieve
the same ends that Oldham discusses. By including within the poem the
telling of a story which the poem’s internal characters are listening and
responding to, he encourages the audience to also listen and respond to
those reactions. Because no one reinforces Unferth’s misgivings, and
Beowulf responds reasonably and logically to them, the audience both in
Heorot and in our world must be left with the impression that Beowulf is
the one who tells the truth in this exchange. Oldham, on the other hand,
has Beowulf and Unferth engage in a heated debate, at the end of which
Beowulf loudly and emotionally accuses Unferth of fratricide, more as
an act of childish retribution than as a calm statement of fact. The way in
which the fratricide is introduced does not guarantee its veracity or
Beowulf s superiority:
“You, Unferth, were wrong to introduce this story and
compel me to compare my power and courage with that
of my friend, for I have heard stories about you which no
malice can falsify. I know, Unferth, that you slew a
kinsman...yet you are allowed to walk freely in this
court.” Shocked,^"* his listeners rustled and the scop rose
as if to stay further accusation, but Beowulf ignored
them all and the anger that had been contained now burst
out and beat upon their heads.
(Oldham 49)
At this point, Beowulf loses his temper completely, shouting at and
insulting his audience and host, and explicitly denouncing the Scyldings
for being unable to subdue Grendel on their own! Again, had this been
what the scop witnessed, the Beowulf poet would have ample motivation
for restructuring the scene before presenting it. It would not be advisable
to undermine the integrity, tact and bravery of the hero so early in the
poem. For Oldham, however, the same confrontation does establish the
driving force of her narrative, namely Unferth’s treachery and fratrieide
and the eventual denunciation of it by the Scyldings.
In his 1957 article ^'Beowulf and the Beasts of Battle,” Adrien
Bonjour explains that the raven as symbol of foreboding is a widely used
theme in Anglo-Saxon poetry but not, significantly, in Beowulf The
raven and the wolf are used as “beasts attendant on a scene of carnage”
and “used by scops in order to add a harsh and realistic note to the
descriptions of battles and their sequels” (565) and to signal to the
audience that another battle will be eoming in the story. Bonjour
speculates: