A tale of fire and blood for Bonfire Night. I posted a link to Lynd Ward’s marvellous Beowulf illustrations many years ago but, as is often the case, the site that hosted them is now defunct. These copies are from a recent addition to the indispensable Internet Archive, and unlike the earlier site you get to see the entire book, complete with Ward’s many vignettes. Ward is as good a match for this dark story as he was with Frankenstein, and there’s some similarity between his rendering of Victor Frankenstein’s creation and the even more murderous Grendel. I generally prefer Ward’s black-and-white work to his colour illustrations, and I suspect Ward preferred working in a single tone when given the choice, as with his celebrated woodcut “novels”, God’s Man and Madman’s Drum. But the hot/cold palette works well here, reflecting a world of firelit halls and the icy dark beyond the fire where nightmares wait for sleeping men.

It’s also possible to read the poem itself, although I wouldn’t advise it with this translation by William Ellery Leonard, not when it begins so risibly with the words “What ho!” Beowulf famously opens with a declaration in Old English—”Hwæt!”—that bards would have shouted to gain the attention of their audience. The word doesn’t translate easily to contemporary English but it’s usually given as “Hear!” or “Listen!” Leonard’s “What ho!” is a phrase that belongs with Bertie Wooster. There are plenty of other translations available, Seamus Heaney’s, for example. I favour the David Wright translation that we read at school, a version which includes a five-page note concerning the difficulties of faithfully translating the poem.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton } • The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton } • August Heat • Illustrating Frankenstein • Lynd Ward’s Frankenstein • Cain’s son: the incarnations of Grendel • Gods’ Man by Lynd Ward

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