Fitt XXIX — Beowulf and Higelac

At Hygelac's hall the returning hero is welcomed. Hygd, the young queen, brings mead-cups to the high-minded Geats. Hygelac's opening words to Beowulf are revealing: he says he long prayed that Beowulf would not go to Heorot, would not seek out the murderous spirit alone. He thanks God the man has come home whole. Then he turns to questions — what mournful moments did Beowulf and Grendel spend together? What happened?

Beowulf begins his report. One detail he develops at length is the political situation he observed at Heorot: Hrothgar has given his daughter Freawaru in marriage to Ingeld of the Heathobards, hoping to settle a long feud between the two peoples with a wedding. Beowulf is skeptical. He describes how the thing will likely go: a Heathobard warrior will see a Dane wearing a sword that was taken from his dead father in battle, and the old anger will ignite despite the marriage.

The prediction is one of the poem's darkest asides. Beowulf does not say the marriage is foolish; he says it rarely works. When a man has lost his father to an enemy and must drink beside that enemy's kinsman, the whetted memory of the dead is too old and too sharp for the peace of a political marriage to overcome. He has just spent weeks in Hrothgar's company and has read the hall politics clearly.