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His bardic occupation provides Oldham with a space to theorize
on the nature of narrative, and these theories might be read as a kind of
layman’s interpretation of the Beowulf poem and its scholarship. Oldham
is a fan, not a scholar, of the poem and therefore offers readers the
benefits of an outsider’s view of Beowulf interpretation. Oldham’s
narrator is also an outsider. The world of this part of the poem is
Denmark, but her scop is not a Dane, nor is he a Geat (Smede) like
Beowulf and his men. Instead, this seop comes from pre-modem Anglia,
and readers familiar with the geography of England would be able to
identify the locations he describes in his stories of King Arthur, thereby
providing a small geography-recognition quiz for her adolescent readers.
The book therefore offers its readers not only the opportunity to “play”
with the Text of BeowulfhxA also to recognize their own national history.
The scop uses his knowledge of English history and culture as a means
of explaining the values the Germanic tribes of England hold in common
with Hrothgar’s people and reminding the Danes of the consequences of
selfishness. An exile “from misfortime, not dishonour” (Oldham 16), he
will use the story of the post-Roman inter-tribal warfare of which he is a
veteran as a moral lesson directed at Hrothulf and Unferth:
Those chiefs failed in their obligations as lords; they
neglected to reward the warriors for their service; they
were niggardly with gifts. Such meanness was justly
answered . . . repaid with battles...[in such a fight] my
lord fell; his hall was sacked and his treasure taken. So I
became a lonely wanderer. . . . (111-2)
From this episode, we see not only that the scop understands well the
Danish society and what it values, but that he has a wide experience of
world, far greater than that of Hrethric. The prologue indicates that
Hrethric will be the main character and indeed, he is the first character
introduced in the novel and his perspective dominates until the scop
enters the scene in Chapter Three. When the scoop meets and befriends
Hrethric, the reader is relieved to have him replace Hrethric as a narrator,
since that boy proves quickly that he is an unreliable observer. An early
scene shows Hrethric taking a small and scraggy piglet away from a
Danish “churl” who says pleadingly: “My lord, we have little. The winter
has been long . . . The com has mould; the birds we catch have little
flesh. Please, my lord, do not take a little pig.” Though we later learn he
is taking the pig to sacrifice it, he does not explain this and responds
callously to this man’s plea, “I must have it”-(Oldham 13). The fact that
Hrethric fails to recognize that this man, his own subject, is
impoverished and malnourished establishes his lack of compassion for