Beowulf: An Epic Poem, A Cartoon Movie, and the Fragility of History

I recently watched the Beowulf cartoon movie, thanks to my subscription to Netflix. As an aside, I don't care what you think of Netflix, I love them. That company saved familia tres_arboles (a movie-addled crew if there ever was one) from a wicked, brick and mortar video rental jag (you know who I'm talking about). We were suffering a life of constant late-fee punishment that was ruining the fun of watching rental movies every weekend. Now, thanks to Netflix, we can watch more than twice as many movies for less than half what we paid B(all)buster every month.

At any rate, we enjoyed this cartoon take on the norse epic poem (you know, like The Oddessy; a long-ass "poem," telling stories of things that couldn't possibly have really happened, in the context of people and places that really did exist). I found the stories interesting enough to motivate me to fire up the google and the wikipedia and found this. I then switched gears and followed the link to the Beowulf "hero" entry to get a more historical take on the character.

What I found there was an interesting mix of conjecture and educated speculation based on archaeological stuff, literary research, and stuff made up by norse people to make themselves feel good about their historical heroes! In fact, the difficulty scholars have encountered in piecing together a history that includes a "Beowulf" resounds from reliance on oral history as a method of capturing history. And the reliance on oral history, to me, illustrates the absolute fragility of history even now, in an era where almost every trivial detail finds its way into some record or other.

The 2007 cartoon film itself pokes fun at the weakness of oral history in recounting things that "happened a long time ago." Beowulf, having come the King's Drinking Hall (I could use one of those) to announce his intent to destroy Grendel, is challenged to recount his epic "swimming contest" with Brekke; a contest Beowulf lost because he had to fight off several sea "beasts." When challenged by his host ("So you killed 20 of them?") he answers that he "killed nine," after which one of his own men whispers behind his hand to a comrade, "last time he told the story, it was 5!"

And thus, we actually know very little about some Geat named Beowulf, or even that there was such a dude. Which makes me wonder about how important to history is the teller of the story. And who now is telling the story of our time? I hope it's not the so-called mainstream punditry, as I believe they have long abandoned facts in the narrative in exchange for the Faustian bargain of "entertainment value." And thus, we have the elongated Democratic Primary, which Hillary Clinton lost several months ago, appearing vibrant and as open as last January!