PaganSquare.com - WitchesAndPagans.com

The Tale of Osred Gleeman

In the days of Osbert, King of the Hwicce, there was among his hearth-companions a certain man who knew no songs, and indeed, was wholly lacking in gleecraft, and the name of this man was Osred.

When, at a feast, he would see the harp approaching, when each would take it in turn to sing for the others, he would arise, and leave the beer-hall, and go to sleep in the cow-byre instead.

On one such occasion, he went to the cow-byre, and there fell asleep. There he dreamt that someone stood before him, and addressed him, and called him by name.

Osred, he said, sing me something.

He answered, saying, I cannot sing. That is why I left the beer-hall and came here: because I cannot sing.

Once again the speaker said, Nevertheless, you must sing for me.

Of what shall I sing? asked Osred.

Sing to me of Beowulf, he said.

Thereupon, he began to sing, and this is what he sang:

Beowulf I sing, best of kings,

guest of Hrothgar, Grendel's bane:

of all kings, keenest to glory,

of all men, liefest to love.

When he awoke, he remembered this stave, to which he soon added more staves in a like manner.

Then he arose, and went to his lord at his gift-stool, and told him of this dream, and of the gift which he had received. Then he sang for him the staves which he had made, and all who heard them wondered at their sweetness and beauty.

Sing to me of Sigemund Wyrm's-bane, said the king, and so he undertook the task and went away, and in the morning he sang to them of Sigemund and of his mighty wyrm-slaying.

Sing to me now of Shield Sheaving, said the king, and so, in the next morning, he did.

So it is that Osred received the gift of gleecraft, which consisted of this: that whatever tale he heard, he could in one night turn it into the finest staves, such that all who heard them marveled and longed to hear more, like some prize cow who grazes and, chewing her cud, in the morning produces the sweetest and creamiest milk, which all long to drink.

Long years he dwelt in the hall of Osbert, King of the Hwicce, and was accounted among the foremost of gleemen, and many rings he received from him.

Indeed, do we not sing his songs to this very day?

In Henry Treece's 1968 novel The Green Man, his brutal, gripping retelling of Hamlet in its original pagan cultural context, Beowulf is—let me avoid anachronism here—a man for men. He even puts the moves on young Hamlet.

(Horse-faced young Hamlet, himself a man for women, isn't having any of it.)

Yes, that Beowulf: Beowulf Grendel's-bane, King of the Geats, hero of the sole surviving Old English epic of the same name.

I'd always thought that Treece was taking some pretty broad literary license with his gay Beowulf, but after a recent intensive immersion in the original text of Beowulf, I've come to think that he may actually be onto something.

There's no evidence that Beowulf—his name means “bee-wolf,” a kenning for “bear”—was a historical character. He appears only in the eponymous epic, and is never mentioned by any historian of the period.

So, was he gay?

Well, here's what we know about him from the epic:

• He never married. (At least, no wife is ever mentioned.)
• He left no children behind him.
• All his loves—and Beowulf, as the poet testifies frequently, lives by his loves—are towards other men.

You do the math.

Myself, I had always assumed that Beowulf's lack of queen and dynastic offspring were to be read as evidence (such as it was) of his non-historical status. This still seems to me the most likely reading of the evidence, such as it is.

That said, it also seems to me that Beowulf (the epic) will unforcedly sustain a gay reading of its central character's character, and personally, I'm good with that. Beowulf the Geat: a man's man, heroic, generous, utterly admirable.

Gods know, we could use a few more larger-than-life gay heroes.

You can't flip someone off when you're wearing mittens.

Welcome to Minnesota.

Go ahead, laugh at my unfashionable hand-gear: see if I care. When the temperature gets down below zero, no gloves will ever keep your hands as warm as a good, well-knit pair of mittens.

Think of them as symbols of community. In mittens, the fingers keep each other warm.

“Hey, if they're good enough for Thor, they're good enough for me.”

This has been my quip this Winter ever since I finally caved and started leaving my fingered gloves at home. Everyone around here gets the allusion, though it's not, strictly speaking, mythologically correct.

You know the story. Thor and some friends are heading for Etinhame one night when, looking for a place to camp, they discover an oddly-shaped cave with a wide mouth and one strange little room off to the side.

Turns out, it's a giant's cast-off mitten.

Consider the implications: up here, even the frost-giants wear mittens.

Hand-shoes, the ancestors called them 1500 years ago, back in the old Hwiccan hunting-runs. In Beowulf, one of the men torn apart by the troll Grendel is named—for reasons we can only guess at—Hand-shoe.

Not even mittens can ward off every scathe.

If you've ever wondered what it would be like to have flippers instead of hands, come to Minnesota and find out.

My local indie bookshop had one of these left in stock and they kindly held it for me. I ran up there in my garden clothes and damp do-rag because I was so excited to have this book in my hands. 

As soon as it was rung up and handed across the counter to me, I opened the cover, turned to the opening lines and saw---Lo! "Lo," I said aloud. "Interesting choice." I asked them if they needed any copies of my book ("Staubs and Ditchwater") and we agreed the 3 they have in stock will do until I get back from PSG. I declined a bag but got a bright bookmark.  Holding the book to my chest, I tip-tapped out the door and across the street to the car. I sat there for a moment, looking at the cover, then smelling the top of the book, as one does.