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One odd feature of Beowulf, which has attracted some notice but as yet no detailed explanation, is the poet's delay in naming his main character.1 He identifies him first, at home among the Geats hearing of Grendel's ravages, only as Hygelac's thane (194), and then waits nearly one hundred and fifty lines before Beowulf names himself in response to the challenge by Wulfgar, Hrothgar's officer, outside of Heorot (343). Having delayed so long, he may even seem to overlook a better possibility since it might be more dramatic to have Beowulf reveal his name directly to the Danish king he has come to help.2 Yet the poet, I will argue, has constructed these events to place greater weight on Hrothgar's, rather than Beowulf's, explanation of his journey, which depends on an account of a feud involving Beowulf's father, Ecgtheow. In doing so, he provides an opportunity for the audience to reassess its perception of the relative strengths of the two groups and to consider the possibility that, behind the fights with monsters, the Danes and Geats confront similar problems, related, I will propose, to succession. If so, his use of Ecgtheow's feud reveals a sophisticated understanding of narrative in which the past and its disclosure can affect a contemporary world.
Even before the exchange with Hrothgar, stories play a role in establishing the contrast between the Danes, who have been made powerless through Grendel's attacks, and the Geats, who under Beowulf can and do act. The triumphal rush of Danish history, begun by Scyld Scefing's arrival and continued through the building of Heorot, comes to a halt once it becomes clear that Grendel's first assault, itself introduced around the scop's story of creation (86-110),3 is not an isolated event, but the beginning of a prolonged campaign. Their empty hall (138-47a) and futile heathen sacrifices (175-88) show that the Danes cannot respond. More significant, however, for the present argument are the songs or tales through which news of the disaster then spreads:
(The time was long; for twelve years the lord of the Scyldings suffered trouble, each of miseries, of great sorrows; therefore, it became openly known to people, to the sons of men, sadly through songs that Grendel fought for a time against Hrothgar ....