Beowulf, A Precessional Myth, page 11

Drowning Grendel

Our hero battles the monster that has been dragging Hrothgar's nobles to their death. Beowulf, for some reason not explained, makes a conscious decision not to use any weapons.

This titanic struggle leaves Grendel mortally wounded. Our hero breaks off Grendel's claw as a trophy and pins it up high in the Mead Hall for all to see. Grendel drags himself off to his lair and dies at the bottom of his hellish lake, leaving Beowulf triumphant.

Drowning in the celestial sea

The events surrounding the new Mead Hall looked suspiciously like the element in a precessional myth but I was stumped about how to proceed. I had long assumed that as Grendel was doing the nasty deed, that he must therefore be the precessional force causing the upset, much like Perseus does in the Mythraic myths, (see Bibliography, The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries by David Ulansey). Unfortunately Grendel dies and the slaughter continues with his mother, see the next section. Seeking an explanation that both monsters represent the precessional force just seemed artificial and inelegant. So the matter rested for a couple of years while I became ever more doubtful of the Saga being a precessional myth.

In mythic terms, a major character disappearing beneath a lake or the sea implies its celestial representative is, due to the shifting of the celestial poles, slipping beneath the celestial equator. During a long camping trip to the mountains of southern France I was watching the southern skies. In those latitudes a constellation called Scorpius is quite prominent on the southern horizon. It has a baleful red giant star, Antares, at Scorpius' heart. Further north, like London England, a good proportion of the constellation is below the horizon, yet it is one of the zodiacal constellations.

These days I pack my planisphere along with my tourist maps so I know what skies I'll be getting through the summer. It took only a few moments to see that Scorpius' position in relation to the celestial North Pole means that as the Pole tracks around due to precession, then Scorpius will move further south and beneath the celestial equator. And will continue to do so for several thousand years. In addition, Scorpius is a clawed creature who can lose one as a trophy to Beowulf. A clawed creature defeated by our hero? Oh mercy, I had found Grendel. That means Beowulf himself must be the precessional force.

Figure 7. Scorpius at 4000BC.

Beowulf, at the end of his battle, fixes the claw of Grendel high up on the Mead Hall. If the Mead Hall represents the system of equinoxes and solstices and the starry dome above, then fixing the claw in that structure means that only Grendel's claw remains above the celestial equator. This is indeed the case because as Scorpius slips below the celestial equator, its claw is the last part left above. This is further confirmed by the poet's description of Grendel diving deep into his marsh-den and all life drowning out of him.

 

Scorpius descending

The following sequence of charts show how Scorpius is slipping below the celestial equator. Figure 7 above shows Scorpius at 4000BC. The sequence below shows the constellation at 2000-year intervals.

Figure 8. Scorpius at 2000BC.

Already we can see that precession is forcing both the ecliptic (the sun's path through the zodiac) and Scorpius lower in the south.

Figure 9. Scorpius at 1BC.

Scorpius is slowly drowning in the mythic sea.

Figure 10. Scorpius at 2000AD.

Not only drowning but now only half visible from Anglo-Saxon latitudes like London, England.

This is a very subtle and long term progression, not at all something that can be easily marked over a couple of generations. Rather, the effect described by the drowning of Grendel due the processional force takes thousands of years over the processional cycle - 13000 years down, then 13000 years up again. It takes a deep understanding of both precession and the starry sky above us to visualise this possibility. Note also how Scorpius is not only precessing eastwards as the ages pass, but is descending below the horizon as seen from the London, UK, latitude. Truly, Grendel is drowning.

It says much for our Anglo-Saxon scholar that he was able to express this concept. It also says much for those scholars who kept alive the principles of precessional astronomy through Europe's long Dark Ages. Those times were not so dark after all. Critics might scoff at the idea of such knowledge being preserved, but precessional astronomy did not clash with Church teachings. Thus there is no reason for it have been lost or suppressed.