The Runes of Franks Casket and the Epic of Beowulf Essays -- Epic Beow

Franks Casket and Beowulf  Ã‚   Runic inscriptions have been found not only in Anglo-Saxon poetry but also in archaeologicial discoveries like the Clermont or Franks casket. Runic inscriptions have been discovered on coins and various other objects, the most important being the beautiful Clermont or Franks casket. The top and three of the sides are now in the British Museum, the fourth side is in the Museo Nazionale at Florence. The casket is made of whalebone, and the scenes carved on it represent an episode from the Welandsaga, the adoration of the Magi, Romulus and Remus nursed by the she-wolf and, lastly, a fight between Titus and the Jews. The carving on the Florence fragment is still unexplained. The legends engraved around these episodes are intended to represent the capture of the whale and to elucidate the carving. On linguistic grounds it has been thought probable that the casket was made in Northumbria at the beginning of the eighth century. In several Old English manuscripts runes are found in isolated cases, for instance in Beowulf and in the Durham Ritual. In the riddles of the Exeter Book the occasional introduction of runes sometimes helps to solve the mystery of the enigma, and sometimes increases the obscurity of the passage. Occasionally a poet or scribe will record his name by means of a runic acrostic introduced into the text. Thus, the poems Crist, Juliana, Elene and the Vercelli fragment bear the runic signature of their author, Cynewulf. In the poem Beowulf we see runes used with connotations of magic or charms. Early Englishmen were fully conversant with the Germanic runic alphabet. In Beowulf the hero is in deadly combat with Grendel’s mother in the mere. He is at the point of being killed... ...her to cross the sea in search of the distant country where he had found gold and land, etc.. So runes are seen to be usable, as The Husband’s Message illustrates, in common communication with no overtones of magic. In Beowulf we see the mention of runes used with connotations of magic or charms. Examining historic evidence, we find that early Englishmen used   runes sometimes with connotations of magic and sometimes without such implied meanings. BIBLIOGRAPHY Chickering, Howell D.. Beowulf A dual-Language Edition. New York: Anchor Books, 1977. The Husband’s Message. In The Earliest English Poems, translated by Michael Alexander. New York: Penguin Books, 1991. Collins, Roger and McClure, Judith, editors. Bede: The Ecclesiastical History of the English People; The Greater Chronicle; Bede’s Letter to Egbert. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969.