On Beowulf and Ruodlieb: a folkloric context for Hrothgar’s Sermon

Abstract

Though rarely compared, Beowulf and Ruodlieb are two medieval epics composed by speakers of West Germanic languages that exhibit a shared sequence of folktale motifs. In both works, a young man considered unpromising in his youth seeks adventure abroad, serves a magnanimous foreign king well, and returns to his homeland with wealth and wisdom in his possession. In Ruodlieb, the king’s wisdom is imparted to the hero in the form of a speech of counsels with unmistakable folkloric analogues. In Beowulf, it is argued, the king delivers a speech that derives from the same folkloric traditions but reflects the poet’s radical alteration of his source materials. In the Beowulf poet’s hands, the motif of the sapiential parting gift is shorn of its folkloric and demotic qualities and imbued with epic and aristocratic qualities instead.