Beowa,Beaw,Bēow[beːow],Beo orBedwig is a figure inAnglo-Saxon traditional religion associated withbarley andagriculture. The figure is attested in theAnglo-Saxon royal genealogies as they were extended in theage of Alfred, where Beowa is inserted as the son ofScyld and the grandson ofSceafa, in lineages carried back toAdam.[1] Connections have been proposed between the figure of Beowa and the heroBeowulf of the poem of thesame name and English folk song figureJohn Barleycorn.
Beoƿ is anOld English word for barley. In the Anglo-Saxon genealogies, Beoƿa is the son or grandson ofSceafa, the Old English word forsheaf. The nounbeoƿ has anOld Norse parallel inBygg, the word for "grain." Related comparisons have been made between the figure of Beoƿ andByggvir, attested in theProse Edda as a servant of the godFreyr.[2]
Some scholars posit a connection between the mythical figure of Beowa and the legendary Beowulf. As the two characters possess many of the same attributes, it has been suggested that "a god Beowa, whose existence in myth is certain, became confused or blended with Beowulf."[3]
Another possibility is that the (first) scribe responsible for the Beowulf text conflated two names. At the beginning of the poem, there is a character called Beowulf, the son ofScyld Scefing, but this character isnot the Beowulf who is the protagonist of the poem. Rather than accepting that there are two different characters with this unusual name, many modern editions of the poem replace this name with "Beow".[4]J. R. R. Tolkien, one of the proponents of reading "Beow" here, suggested that the use of "Beowulf" as Scyld Schefing's son was a scribal error for the original "Beow", noting that the two scribes who produced the Beowulf manuscript were "both extremely ignorant of and careless with proper names", and called the occurrence of "Beowulf" in this place in the manuscript "one of the oddest facts in Old English literature" and "one of the reddest and highest red herrings that were ever dragged across a literary trail".[5]
Kathleen Herbert draws a link between Beowa and the figure ofJohn Barleycorn of traditional English folksong. Herbert says that Beowa and Barleycorn are one and the same, noting that the folksong details the suffering, death, and resurrection of Barleycorn, yet also celebrates the "reviving effects of drinking his blood."[6]
Beowa has also been connected to the figure of Bjárr or Bjórr, who appears in theKálfsvísa (in which he rides a horse called Blakkr, or Black) and theBjarkarímur (in which he is the grandfather ofBödvar Bjarki, who has been separately connected with the heroBeowulf).[7]
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