Heorot (

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

'hart, stag') is a mead-hall and major point of focus in the Anglo-Saxon poem '' Beowulf''. The hall serves as a seat of rule for King

Hrothgar Hrothgar ( ang, Hrōðgār ; on, Hróarr) was a semi-legendary Danish king living around the early sixth century AD. Hrothgar appears in the Anglo-Saxon epics '' Beowulf'' and ''Widsith'', in Norse sagas and poems, and in medieval Danish chr ...

, a

legendary Danish king The legendary kings of Denmark are the predecessors of Gorm the Old, a king who reigned ca. 930s to 950s and is the earliest reliably attested Danish ruler. Historicity of the earlier legendary kings are thus half legend and half history. The acc ...

. After the monster Grendel slaughters the inhabitants of the hall, the

Geatish The Geats ( ; ang, gēatas ; non, gautar ; sv, götar ), sometimes called ''Goths'', were a large North Germanic tribe who inhabited ("land of the Geats") in modern southern Sweden from antiquity until the late Middle Ages. They are one of th ...

hero Beowulf defends the royal hall before subsequently defeating him. Later

Grendel's mother Grendel's mother ( ang, Grendles mōdor) is one of three antagonists in the anonymous Old English poem '' Beowulf'' (c. 700-1000 AD), the other two being Grendel and the dragon. Each antagonist reflects different negative aspects of both the h ...

attacks the inhabitants of the hall, and she too is subsequently defeated by Beowulf.

Name

The name ''Heorot'' is the Old English word for a stag. Its use may stem from an association between royalty and stags in

Germanic paganism Germanic paganism or Germanic religion refers to the traditional, culturally significant religion of the Germanic peoples. With a chronological range of at least one thousand years in an area covering Scandinavia, the British Isles, modern Germ ...

. Archaeologists have unearthed a variety of Anglo-Saxon finds associating stags with royalty. For example, a sceptre or whetstone discovered in mound I of the Anglo-Saxon burial site Sutton Hoo prominently features a standing stag at its top.For general discussion, see Fulk, Bjork, & Niles (2008:119–120). For images and details regarding the sceptre or whetstone, see the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

'
collection entry for the object here
In a wider Germanic context, stags appear associated with royalty with some frequency. For example, in Norse mythology—the mythology of the closely related North Germanic peoples—the royal god

Freyr Freyr (Old Norse: 'Lord'), sometimes anglicized as Frey, is a widely attested god in Norse mythology, associated with kingship, fertility, peace, and weather. Freyr, sometimes referred to as Yngvi-Freyr, was especially associated with Sweden an ...

(Old Norse: "Lord") wields an antler as a weapon. An alternative name for Freyr is ''Ing'', and the Anglo-Saxons were closely associated with this deity in a variety of contexts (they are, for example, counted among the

Ingvaeones The Ingaevones were a West Germanic cultural group living in the Northern Germania along the North Sea coast in the areas of Jutland, Holstein, and Frisia in classical antiquity. Tribes in this area included the Angles, Frisii, Chauci, Saxons, ...

, a Latinized Proto-Germanic term meaning "friends of Ing", in Roman senator

Tacitus Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars. The surviving portions of his two major works—the ...

's first century CE '' Germania'' and, in ''Beowulf'', the term ''ingwine'', Old English for "friend of Ing", is repeatedly invoked in association with Hrothgar, ruler of Heorot).See discussion in, for example, Chaney (1999

970 Year 970 ( CMLXX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar, the 970th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' designations, the 970th year of the 1st millennium, the 70th yea ...

130–132). According to historian

William Chaney William Albert Chaney (December 23, 1922 – March 13, 2013) was an American historian of Anglo-Saxon England. Chaney spent his career at Lawrence University, where he taught from 1952 until his death; he held the George McKendree Steele endowed ...

Whatever the association with the stag or hart with fertility and the new year, with Frey, with dedicated deaths, or with primitive animal-gods cannot now be determined with any certainty. What is certain, however, is that the two stags most prominent from Anglo-Saxon times are both connected with kings, the emblem surmounting the unique 'standard' in the royal cenotaph of Sutton Hoo and the great hall of Heorot in ''Beowulf''.Chaney (1999
970 Year 970 ( CMLXX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar, the 970th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' designations, the 970th year of the 1st millennium, the 70th yea ...
132).

Description

The anonymous author of ''Beowulf'' praises Heorot as large enough to allow Hrothgar to present Beowulf with a gift of eight horses, each with gold-plate headgear. It functions both as a seat of government and as a residence for the king's thanes (warriors). Heorot symbolizes human civilization and culture, as well as the might of the Danish kings—essentially, all the good things in the world of ''Beowulf''. Its brightness, warmth, and joy contrasts with the darkness of the swamp waters inhabited by Grendel.Niles, John D.
"Beowulf's Great Hall"
''

History Today ''History Today'' is an illustrated history magazine. Published monthly in London since January 1951, it presents serious and authoritative history to as wide a public as possible. The magazine covers all periods and geographical regions and pub ...

'', October 2006, 56 (10), pp. 40–44

Location

Harty, Kent

Though Heorot is widely considered a literary construction, a theory proposed in 1998 by the archaeologist Paul Wilkinson has suggested that it was based on a hall at Harty on the

Isle of Sheppey The Isle of Sheppey is an island off the northern coast of Kent, England, neighbouring the Thames Estuary, centred from central London. It has an area of . The island forms part of the local government district of Swale. ''Sheppey'' is derive ...

, which would have been familiar to the anonymous Anglo-Saxon author; Harty was indeed named Heorot in Saxon times. He suggests that the steep shining sea-cliffs of ''Beowulf'' would match the pale cliffs of Sheerness on that island, its name meaning "bright headland". An inlet near Harty is named "Land's End", like Beowulf's landing-place on the way to Heorot. The sea-journey from the

Rhine ), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland , source1_coordinates= , source1_elevation = , source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein , source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland , source2_coordinates= , so ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

could take the day and a half mentioned in the poem. The road to Heorot is described as a ''straet'', a Roman Road, of which there are none in Scandinavia, but one leads across the Isle of Harty to a Roman settlement, possibly a villa. The

toponymist Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of ''toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...

Margaret Gelling Margaret Joy Gelling, (''née'' Midgley; 29 November 1924 – 24 April 2009) was an English toponymist, known for her extensive studies of English place-names. She served as President of the English Place-Name Society from 1986 to 1998, and ...

observed that the description in ''Beowulf'' of Heorot as having a ''fagne flor'', a shining or coloured floor, could "denote the paved or tessellated floor of a Roman building". Finally, the surrounding area was named '' Schrawynghop'' in the Middle Ages, ''schrawa'' meaning "demons" and ''hop'' meaning "land enclosed by marshes", suggestive of Grendel's lonely fens in the poem. The archaeologist Paul Budden acknowledged "the story appealed" to him as a Kentish man, but felt that (as Wilkinson conceded) the subject was "mythology, not archaeology or science".

Lejre, Zealand

An alternative theory sees Heorot as the accurate, but Anglicised, iteration of a historic hall in the village of

Lejre Lejre is a railway town, with a population of 3,127 (1 January 2022),Roskilde Roskilde ( , ) is a city west of Copenhagen on the Danish island of Zealand. With a population of 51,916 (), the city is a business and educational centre for the region and the 10th largest city in Denmark. It is governed by the administrative ...

. Though Heorot does not appear in Scandinavian sources, King Hroðulf's (Hrólfr Kraki) hall is mentioned in Hrólf Kraki's saga as Hleiðargarðr, and located in Lejre. The medieval chroniclers

Saxo Grammaticus Saxo Grammaticus (c. 1150 – c. 1220), also known as Saxo cognomine Longus, was a Danish historian, theologian and author. He is thought to have been a clerk or secretary to Absalon, Archbishop of Lund, the main advisor to Valdemar I of Denmark ...

and

Sven Aggesen Svend Aggesen (or "Sven"; also known as ''Aggessøn'', ''Aggesøn'' or ''Aagesen'', in Latin ''Sveno Aggonis''; born around 1140 to 1150, death unknown) is the author of '' Brevis historia regum Dacie'', one of the first attempts to write a coherent ...

already suggested that Lejre was the chief residence of the

Skjöldung Old English Scylding (plural Scyldingas) and Old Norse Skjǫldung (plural Skjǫldungar), meaning in both languages "children of Scyld/Skjǫldr" are the members of a legendary royal family of Danes, especially kings. The name is explained in many ...

clan (called “Scylding” in the poem). The remains of a

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

hall complex was uncovered southwest of Lejre in 1986–1988 by Tom Christensen of the Roskilde Museum. Wood from the foundation was

radiocarbon Carbon-14, C-14, or radiocarbon, is a radioactive isotope of carbon with an atomic nucleus containing 6 protons and 8 neutrons. Its presence in organic materials is the basis of the radiocarbon dating method pioneered by Willard Libby and c ...

-dated to about 880. It was later found that this hall was built over an older hall which has been dated to 680. In 2004–2005, Christensen excavated a third hall located just north of the other two. This hall was built in the mid-6th century, all three halls were about 50 meters long. Fred C. Robinson is also attracted to this identification: "Hrothgar (and later Hrothulf) ruled from a royal settlement whose present location can with fair confidence be fixed as the modern Danish village of Leire, the actual location of Heorot." The role of Lejre in ''Beowulf'' is discussed by John Niles and

Marijane Osborn Marijane Osborn (born 1934) is an American academic. Her research spans literary disciplines, she is a specialist in Old English and Norse literature, and she has published on runes, Middle English, Victorian and contemporary poets and writers, fi ...

in their 2007 ''Beowulf and Lejre''.

Modern popular culture

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlins ...

, who compared Heorot to

Camelot Camelot is a castle and court associated with the legendary King Arthur. Absent in the early Arthurian material, Camelot first appeared in 12th-century French romances and, since the Lancelot-Grail cycle, eventually came to be described as th ...

for its mix of legendary and historical associations, used it as the basis for the Golden Hall of King

Théoden Théoden is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novel, ''The Lord of the Rings''. The King of Rohan (Middle-earth), Rohan and Lord of the Mark or of the Riddermark, names used by the Rohirrim for their land, he appears as a suppor ...

Meduseld Rohan is a fictional kingdom of Men (Middle-earth), Men in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy setting of Middle-earth. Known for its horsemen, the Rohirrim, Rohan provides its ally Gondor with cavalry. Its territory is mainly grassland. The Rohirrim ca ...

, in the land of Rohan. ''

The Legacy of Heorot ''The Legacy of Heorot'' is a science fiction novel by American writers Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steven Barnes, first published in 1987. Reproduction and fertility expert Dr Jack Cohen acted as a consultant on the book, designing the no ...

'' is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

novel by American writers

Larry Niven Laurence van Cott Niven (; born April 30, 1938) is an American science fiction writer. His best-known works are '' Ringworld'' (1970), which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards, and, with Jerry Pournelle, '' The Mote in God's E ...

Jerry Pournelle Jerry Eugene Pournelle (; August 7, 1933 – September 8, 2017) was an American scientist in the area of operations research and human factors research, a science fiction writer, essayist, journalist, and one of the first bloggers. In the 1960s ...

, and Steven Barnes, first published in 1987. "Heorot" is a short story in ''

The Dresden Files ''The Dresden Files'' is a series of contemporary fantasy/ mystery novels written by American author Jim Butcher. The first novel, '' Storm Front''—which was also Butcher's writing debut—was published in 2000 by Roc Books. The books are wr ...

'' short story collection '' Side Jobs''.

Notes and citations

References

* Chaney, William A. 1999

''The Cult of Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England: The Transition from Paganism to Christianity''. Manchester University Press. *Fulk, R.D.; Bjork, E. Robert; & Niles, John D. 2008. ''Klaeber's Beowulf''. Fourth edition.

University of Toronto Press The University of Toronto Press is a Canadian university press founded in 1901. Although it was founded in 1901, the press did not actually publish any books until 1911. The press originally printed only examination books and the university cale ...

. {{Beowulf Beowulf