The origin of Hondscioh: Grendel’s glove and the Beowulf tradition

ABSTRACT

Critics have long argued that the Beowulf poet invented the name Hondsciōh (‘glove’) and gave it to Grendel’s Geatish victim in order to make a pun or introduce humour into the poem. Though differing aesthetic rationales for the name have been offered, a consensus has formed that Hondscioh’s peculiar name must reflect conscious artistry and literary sophistication. The present article challenges this consensus and argues that Hondsciōh became a personal name due to an aural misunderstanding in an earlier rendition of the Beowulf narrative: what had been a term for Grendel’s glove was misconstrued as the name of Grendel’s victim. The championed explanation is shown to possess greater coherence and explanatory power than its competitors.

KEYWORDS:

• Beowulf
• onomastics
• oral tradition

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

¹ The text of Beowulf is cited here and throughout by line number from Fulk, Bjork & Niles (Toronto, 2008). Translations of Beowulf are cited here and throughout from Fulk (2010).

² See Kluge (2011), s.v. Handschuh.

³ See ten Brink (1888: 123–124); Schücking (1905: 13); Magoun (1958). For a related argument, see Kiernan (1981: 252–263).

⁴ In this quotation, Pakis is expressing credence in views put forward and credited by others, who will be cited below. See also Carens (1976); Harris (1982); and Biggs (2003).

⁵ See, for instance, Momma (2005: 179–181); Biggs (2005: 726–734); Hill (2008: 65–70); and Leneghan (2020: 129–134).

⁶ For possible instances of humour in Beowulf, see the various discussions of the poem in Wilcox (2000).

⁷ As it happens, the argument advanced by Pfrenger (2008) is that the monster has no glove, and that the word glōf merely refers to the monster’s stomach. The argument is unpersuasive for reasons made clear by Cavell (2014). She writes: ‘The verse unit Glof hangode is unlikely to indicate a sagging belly, as Pfrenger would have it; the verb does not act this way elsewhere in Beowulf and other Old English literature, but instead is used of objects or whole bodies which hang from something else’ (2014: 161). See also Cavell (2016: 86–87).

⁸ See Cameron, Amos & Healey et al. (2018), s.v. glōf, glōfe, glōfa. The text of Maxims II is cited by line number from Dobbie (1942). For a discussion of gloves in Old English sources, see Cavell (2016: 88–89).

⁹ See de Vries (1962), s.v. hanzki.

¹⁰ Hondsciōh was first identified as a proper name by Grundtvig (1861: 162). The discovery of the name was made independently by Holtzmann (1863: 496). For a considered argument that Hondsciōh is not a name in Beowulf, see Skeat (1886: 120–131). For a response to Skeat’s argument, which outlines compelling metrical and syntactical reasons to regard Hondsciōh as a proper name in Beowulf, see Shaw (2020: 153–158).

¹¹ See Laborde (1923). Pfrenger’s (2008) objections to Laborde’s argument are not convincing. For the possibility that glōf denotes a ‘bag’ (thereby creating additional folkloric analogues), see Whitbread (1967: 28–31). On the nature of the glove, see also Cavell (2016: 83–90); ten Brink (1888: 123–124); and Anderson (1982).

¹² For excerpts from the numerous texts that feature characters in Beowulf, see Garmonsway & Simpson (1968); and Fulk, Bjork & Niles (2008: 291–315). For arguments in defence of the assumption that characters in Beowulf are likelier to be inherited than invented, see Neidorf (2013); and Shippey (2014).

¹³ For arguments that Beowulf possesses a meaningful and characterising name, see Feldman (1974); and Glosecki (1988). For counterarguments, see Fulk (2007). For Wealhtheow as a characterising name, see Hill (1990); and Orchard (2003: 219). For counterarguments, see Jurasinski (2007); and Neidorf (2018).