Beowulf And Skyrim Parallels

A lot of people play The Elder Scrolls now that Skyrim’s been released. It is a fantastic series, probably best described as the Lord Of The Rings of video games because of its depth and intrinsic lore. It has such an original and compelling fantasy basis that even Call of Duty and other FPS dorks choose to play it sometimes, and that’s saying something. In a sense, playing these games is like reading a book, without actually reading it.

And that feeling comes partially from the fact that these games emulate popular and classical fiction. It’s true that these kinds of things are referenced often; The Hobbit by Tolkien has the same premise as Beowulf because both lead up to the slaying of a dragon. In the 70’s and 80’s, metal bands thought it was totally hardcore to reference dark literature like The Necronomicon and other Lovecraftian creations because it meant that… well, I don’t even think they really know what it meant. Honestly I don’t like bands like that.

But The Elder Scrolls series is relevant to a broader population, arguably, because it’s not every guy these days that likes hardcore death-post sex technotica metalblast dreamvibe sassafras massacre hellscream valkyrie music. But there are a lot of gamers who play Skyrim.

Just google “Elder Scrolls References” and see what you find, honestly. There are millions. They’re often denoted as “easter eggs” and are arranged in order of which book or legend they’re referencing. There are references to LOTR, King Arthur, the Headless Horseman, etc.

But I recently read Beowulf because I found it at a book store for one dollar. I was very thoroughly astounded at how many references I found without even really trying very hard. Skyrim is chock full of them. In fact, it’s safe to say that the entire virtual realm of Skyrim is based off Scandinavia. I’ll remind you that there is a Nordic race in the game, which is basically human, but with special perks and abilities. They are not necessarily better than any of the other eight races, but they have a 50% resistance to frost and cold, and also a battle-cry that makes enemies flee for thirty seconds. It’s kind of fitting, honestly.

As I read and annotated Beowulf, I noted the use of titles: earls, mainly, and thanes as well. Earls are the English translation of the Scandinavian term jarl, which is used extensively in Skyrim. Thane is a term to describe someone of moderate nobility, in between the class of normal citizen and distinguished jarl. You become thane of several cities if you play the game properly and thoroughly.

Also, the main antagonists of Beowulf are mirrored, more or less, in The Elder Scrolls series, starting with Morrowind, or game 3 of 5. The Uderfrykte is a strange troll that you encounter in Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim, and which you may kill all three times–it doesn’t seem to affect its appearance in later games at all. The Uderfrykte it seen as Grendel because of a nearby dead man’s journal, which describes his encounters with the Uderfrykte. It also speaks of a Uderfrykte Matron monster which you may find and kill–this is a mirror image of Grendel’s mother.

Also, the final antagonistic creature that Beowulf faces down is the dragon. Dragons are the major and highly difficult enemies found in Skyrim, the “boss battles” that sometimes come randomly. It is apparent that the dragons have been saved as creatures up until this game because the realm of Skyrim is obviously Nordic. It is almost as if the character plays in the time period of which Beowulf is set in, except with certain add-ons like magic and strange creatures, etc.

The presence of mead in Skyrim is prevalent, however its use is kind of absurd. If you drink too much of it, you gain little and lose a lot, because it decreases your strength and ultimately makes you kind of shitty for a while. Mead is kind of useless; I’ve never known anyone to trust in its effects while playing, and I’m assuming the only reason it’s really found is because the culture of the Scandinavians included it so heavily both in life and literature. The great mead-hall Heorot in Beowulf is proof of that.

In the story, Beowulf goes to fight for the king of the Danes, Hrothgar. This is used in Skyrim as the name of not a person, but a place; perhaps the place was named after the person, who supposedly really lived and may or may not exist in The Elder Scrolls. In Skyrim you climb a mountain to reach High Hrothgar, which is an enormous building meant for prayer and ritual. It is inhabited by old wise men. Honestly I don’t get the reference, really, but it’s kind of cool to see the name crop up again. Hrothgar was a sad guy in Beowulf because Grendel was killing all of his men. Eventually he sat alone in his mead-hall because no one visited him anymore, and it stayed that way for twelve years. Beowulf really helped him out by slaying the monsters for him.

My last reference, for this is kind of long and I could go for much longer, is one that I am proud for having found: at the beginning of Beowulf, it talks about the death of Scyld Scefing, or in English “Shield Sheafing,” who was the first of the line of Danish people. It says that he walked the “whale-road” to his death. This is seen in Skyrim as the road you walk on your way to kill dragon boss Alduin, for you walk a road up to the Hall of Valor (representative of Valhalla, or a sort of Norse heaven) that is lined with the rib cages of massive whales.

That’s it for me. If you are interested in any more references, be my guest and look them all up. There are some very good dialogue and physical references to some very relatable works of art and myth to be found in these game.

-Thom
aestheism, not atheism.

 

Word Etymologies

Recently I’ve been very obsessed with where words originated from… no, not so much their geographic aspects, although those can sometimes be cool and all, but what they originally meant and what they mean now. I maintain a small mental cubby of several words I find unique and strange in etymology.

For instance, as I read about mythology (particularly Greek and Roman, I guess, but I’m trying to make time for Egyptian and Norse, too), I find that a lot of words pop up that I can immediately connect with modern English words. For instance, the word ‘tantalizing’ means to torment one’s emotions, or toy with them, basically. It’s a common word, everyone’s heard it… “damn, boy, your scent be pos’tiv’ly tantalizin’ today,” that kind of thing, I say that all the time. But it originates from a Greek fellow named Tantalus (sometimes spelled ‘Tantalos’) who was a complete and total douchebag. His background is rather morbid: the gods liked him so much that he was allowed to dine with them. And I guess he did dine with them, quite a bit, because he got bored and cooked his son Pelops in the stew and served it to everyone. They got super pissed, and they banished him to Hades, and his punishment was to stand in a pool of water for eternity, under a fruit-bearing tree. Whenever he stoops to drink, the water sinks into pores in the ground; whenever he reaches to grab fruit from the tree branches, the winds toss the branches far away from him. This toys with his emotiooooooons. It’s an awfully tantalizing punishment for Tantalus.

And so we have that word. And there are many more which I’ve learned. The word ‘Lord’ originates from Middle English ‘hlaford’ meaning “bread-giver”; similarly, the word ‘lady’ (originally written ‘hlafaeta’) means “bread-eater”.

‘Aphrodisiac,’ which means a substance that increases one’s sexual desire, stems from Aphrodite, who was sometimes construed as the Greek Goddess of Love; other times, it was her son Eros (Roman: Cupid), who gives us the word ‘erotic,’ which originally meant something much more innocent in nature than what we see today.

The word ‘luna,’ which we commonly associate with the moon, comes from the Roman divinity of the same name, who personified the moon. However, the word ‘lunatic’ also comes from the same origin, because crazy people were once thought to have their emotions and behavior regulated by the moon. On a related note, I read a book recently called The Professor and the Madman (it was really good, it’s by Simon Winchester), and from this book I learned the origin of the word ‘bedlam’: synonymous with mayhem or chaos, it comes from a famous lunatic asylum, fully named Our Lady of Bethlehem, allusive to Mary of the Bible. The hospital was and is located on the outskirts of London.

The origin of the word ‘panic’ comes from (you saw this coming) another Greek god. Pan, who presides as overseer and onlooker of all forest-related nonsense, is an ugly-ass dude who most people feared because he was so damn ugly. He chased nymphs around all the time and was kind of douchey. When people would walk into the words and hear noises that they could not really attribute to anything they were seeing, they would call them ‘panic’ noises. Woodpecking, branches snapping, and distant humming or ringing were all noises which made commoners, who knew no better, very uncomfortable. Therefore these ‘panic’ notions became today’s feeling of ‘panic,’ which we understand nowadays to be much worse than feeling merely ‘uncomfortable.’

Words are very interesting when you only look into them. Next time you need to look up a word, look up its etymology as well, and you’ll often be pleased that you did.

-Thom,
aestheism, not atheism.