Wulf and Eadwacer : For Whom, For What?

Abstract

Probably, no poem in the Anglo-Saxon corpus has occasioned as much scholarly disagreement and curiosity as Wulf and Eadwacer. The poem has been variously regarded as a riddle, a charm, a Franuenlied, a funeral lament, a canine or lupine story. However, nothing encourages us to regard the poem as merely one of these literary genres. Lacking sufficient plot, any doctrinal framework, conventional theme, or obviously formulaic passages, the poem defies interpretation. Though everything in Wulf and Eadwacer is so cryptic and ambiguous that we are invited to fill the missing links in the adequately filled-out story, one thing must be clear that this is a lament by a female speaker addressed to an absent wulf, as indicated by the nominative feminine reotugu, "weeping," in line 10 and seoce, "troubled or sick" in line 14. A female speaker addresses her pain and suffering to her absent lover, possibly husband (based on the meaning of eadwacer in terms of male-gendered patriarchal society). Her lover, wulf, is seen as a fugitive who lives like a wolf in the forest, as revealed in Maxims II, ll. 18b-19a―wulf seal on bearowe/earm anhaga ("The wolf shall be in the wood, the miserable solitary one"), though it is impossible to conjecture why he came to be hostile to her people in this poem. The poem does not specify that wulf is actually an outlaw, but his name in conjunction with his situation carries that implication. He is clearly in peril of his life and is also regarded as an object to be consumed for a ritual ceremony. In addition, the female speaker is watched over by an unidentified se beaducafa ("the battle-brave" man), who not only provides food and shelter for her, but also has some physical relationship with her. The speaker's relationship with wulf, as suggested in uncerne earne hwelp bireð wulf to wúda and uncer giedd, could never have ended in happy union.