Water and Fire: The Myth of the Flood in Anglo-Saxon England

409 Pages·2006·5.757 MB·English

by  Daniel Anlezark

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The story of Noah’s Flood is one of the Bible’s most MANCHESTER
popular stories, and flood myths are preserved by
MEDIEVAL
cultures across the world. This book presents the first
LITERATURE
comprehensive study of the incorporation of the
WWaatteerr aanndd ffiirree
W
Flood myth into the Anglo-Saxon imagination,
ranging from the works of Bede to Beowulf. Focusing
a
on literary representations, this original study
t
contributes to the understanding of the Anglo- e
Saxons’ perception of their place in a universal history r The myth of the Flood in
unfolding in the interval between the primeval deluge
a Anglo-Saxon England
and a future – perhaps imminent – flood of fire, which
n
would destroy the world. This book examines in detail
a diverse range of texts which focus on the myth of d
the Flood, revealing both an imaginative diversity and
fi
shared tradition in the interpretation of the myth. On
the one hand, the Anglo-Saxons saw in the Flood a r
e
climactic event in God’s ongoing war with his more

rebellious creatures, especially the foolish giants,
DANIEL ANLEZARK
while on the other they saw in allegory the mystery of
redemption through baptism. Most striking of all is
their invention of Noah’s fourth son, born in the ark,
from whom they claimed special descent. A
N
The author carefully studies a range of texts against
L
their historical background, and discusses shifting E
emphases in the way the Flood was interpreted for Z
A
Anglo-Saxon audiences. The book concludes with a
R
discussion of Beowulf, where the Flood myth
K
constitutes a sustained metaphor across the poem,
and the relationship is explored between its
presentation of the myth and that found in other
Anglo-Saxon texts.
Daniel Anlezark is Lecturer in English Studies at the University
of Durham
front cover—
Image taken from MS. Junius 11, p. 66, courtesy of
The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
front cover—
Image taken from MS. Junius 11, p. 66, courtesy of
The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
WATER AND FIRE
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J. J. ANDERSON, GAIL ASHTON series editors
This series is broad in scope and receptive to innovation, bringing to-
gether a variety of approaches. It is intended to include monographs,
collections of commissioned essays, and editions and/or translations of
texts, with a focus on English and English-related literature and culture.
It embraces medieval writings of many different kinds (imaginative,
historical, political, scientifi c, religious) as well as post-medieval
treatments of medieval material. An important aim of the series is that
contributions to it should be written in a style which is accessible to a
wide range of readers.
already published
Language and imagination in the Gawain-poems
J. J. Anderson
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Water and fi re
The myth of the Flood in
Anglo-Saxon England
DANIEL ANLEZARK
Manchester University Press
MANCHESTER AND NEW YORK
distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave
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Copyright © Daniel Anlezark 2006
The right of Daniel Anlezark to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Published by Manchester University Press
Altrincham Street, Manchester m1 7ja, Uk
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data is available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
ISBN 978 0 7190 6399 2 paperback
First published by Manchester University Press in hardback 2006
The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external
or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any
content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Abbreviations ix
Introduction 1
Myth 1
The Bible and myth 3
The classical tradition 7
Early Germanic tradition 11
Replacing myths 13
1 ‘You see the water, you see the wood’: The Bible
and the Fathers 21
The Old Testament 23
The New Testament 31
Patristic interpretation 35
2 A manifold mystery: Bede on the Flood 44
Audience 45
Bede and the Flood 52
Ark and Church 53
Flood and baptism 58
The Flood in history 67
Flood and apocalypse 73
Noah and Christ 84
Noah the preacher 96
The Flood and the foolish giants 99
Conclusion 103
3 Learning the lesson of the Flood 112
Niall and Noah 114
The Annals of St-Bertin 121
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vi Contents
Alcuin and the Vikings 127
Alfred and the Flood 131
Ælfric and the Flood 138
Before the Flood: Noah and his generation 139
The Flood in history 141
The Church in the world 144
Translation and commentary 148
Eschatology 158
Conclusion 163
4 Flood, covenant and apocalypse in Old English
poetry 174
Genesis A 175
Exodus 195
Andreas 210
The fl ooding of the city 223
Conclusion 230
5 Planting Noah’s seed 241
The genealogies 245
Sceaf and Wessex 262
Reactions 273
Conclusion 282
6 Beowulf and the myth of the Flood 291
Creation to Flood 298
Ancient work of giants 304
Grendel’s mere 311
Grendel and the underworld 315
Wulf’s fi eld 323
The dragon 333
Beowulf’s death 343
Beowulf and Andreas 347
Conclusion 358
Conclusions 368
Bibliography 375
Index 393
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Acknowledgments
A work of this size and endurance necessarily incurs many debts
of gratitude on the part of the author. My fi rst and greatest debt
is to Malcolm Godden, who supervised the doctoral dissertation
which lies behind a number of elements of this book. I thank
Heather O’Donoghue and Andy Orchard, the examiners of the
same dissertation, for their comments and criticisms which have
led to certain transformations from which I hope this book has
benefi ted. I also owe a great debt to my fi rst teachers of Old
English, Audrey Meaney and Ruth Waterhouse, whose learning
and expertise was an early inspiration, and whose dedication to
a fi eld of study under threat in Australian universities was heroic.
Many undergraduate and graduate students of Old English at
Trinity College Dublin and the University of Durham have also
contributed to this book through their forthright expressions of
opinion and questions seeking clarifi cation, especially when
reading Beowulf. This book would not have been completed
without a term of research leave granted to me by the University
of Durham in 2005.
This project has been helped by the interest and practical
support of many friends and fellow scholars over the past few
years. Those to whom I owe the most thanks are Jason Puskar,
Andrew Bailey, Richard Gartner, Brian Deveney, Takako Fujii,
and of course Laura Merino i Pastor. My last debt is to the
anonymous reader for Manchester University Press, whose sug-
gestions and queries have helped me to clarify and explain where
before there was obscurity. Any ambiguities and errors which
remain are, of course, my own.
Daniel Anlezark
Durham
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Abbreviations
ASE Anglo-Saxon England
ASPR Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records
ASSAH Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History
CCSL Corpus Christianorum Series Latina
CH 1 Æ lfric’s Catholic Homilies: The First Series: Text, ed.
P. A. M. Clemoes, EETS ss 17 (Oxford, 1997)
CH 2 Æ lfric’s Catholic Homilies: The Second Series: Text,
ed. Malcolm Godden (London, 1979)
CSASE Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England
CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum
EEMF Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile
EETS os Early English Text Society, original series
EETS ss E arly English Text Society, supplementary series
EHD English Historical Documents, ed. D. Whitelock
(Oxford, 1979)
ES English Studies
GCS G riechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten
drei Jahrhunderte
HE B ede, Historia Ecclesiastica, ed. B. Colgrave and
R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford, 1969)
JEGP J ournal of English and Germanic Philology
LS 1 Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, ed. W. W. Skeat, vol. 1,
EETS 76, 82 (London, repr. 1966)
LS 2 Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, ed. W. W. Skeat, vol. 2,
EETS 94, 114 (London, repr. 1966)
MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica
MLN Modern Language Notes
MLR Modern Language Review
NM Neuphilologische Mitteilungen
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