But back to men in trouble, and their relation to the weather, which leads me to another adjectival compound hrēohmōd, and then eventually on to Heremod and other troubled warriors. The first part of the compound, hrēoh, refers to weather; it means storm, harsh rough elemental forces of all kinds, not necessarily just wet or cold. For every entry of this and its many compounds in Bosworth-Toller’s dictionary, there are parallel evocations of emotional states. A storm is a “troublous time” on many fronts, connected to physical and emotional pain, upheaval, and disturbance. Connected to, or crossing over, with the adjective (h)rēow, “fierce, passionate bloodthirsty,” connected to the noun hrēow, “sorrow or distress,” and to the verb hrēowan, “to rue or regret.” And so it goes with Old English–semantic worlds isomorphically merging. The other half of the compound, mōd, is one of the most familiar and widespread terms in Old English poetry and prose, and also, to my mind, anyway, one of the most mysterious. Mood, mind, heart, spirit, courage, imagination. Having too much of it is problematic, but so is not having enough. Byrthnoth, for example, has too much. He leads many of his men to their deaths by insisting that they fight the Vikings instead of paying them off, and is judged as excessive by the poet of The Battle of Maldon. He is over the limit, ofermōd, a word usually condensed, squeezed by translation, into “proud” or “arrogant.” Beowulf, on the other hand, is caught in one unfortunate situation where he doesn’t have enough of it. When Grendel’s mother has captured him, and locks him in an embrace as they descend together through the mere into her hall, the hero is certainly physically and perhaps emotionally immobilized, not mōdiġ enough. Like “the right stuff,” mōd can evade precise definition, though I sometimes find “ego” a useful working translation.
Beowulf is, interestingly, the only context for the specific configuration hrċohmōd. It describes both Hrothgar and the dragon. Hrothgar emotionally implores Beowulf to avenge Ӕschere (healsode hrċohmōd, [implored troubled in mind], 2132), echoing his deep distress when he discovers the lifeless body of his friend (Þā wæs frōd cyning,/hār hilderinċ on hrēon mōde,/syðþan hē aldorþeġn unlyfiġendne,/þone dēorestan deadne wisse. [then was the wise king, hoary battle warrior, in troubled/stormy mind, after he knew his chief thane to be lifeless, the dear one dead], 1306-9). The literally and emotionally disturbed dragon stomps around his plundered barrow, hāt and hrēohmōd, ([hot and troubled/stormy-minded], 2296), sniffing out the culprit. Shortly thereafter when Beowulf has wounded him, albeit less than fatally, the dragon heats up, on all levels, spewing fire on hrēoum mōde ([in troubled/stormy mind], 2581) .Another point worth emphasizing here before considering how the weather, in whatever environmental form that weather may assume, conjoins with affect, is that, apparently, both men and dragons can contain, can experience, can internalize a “storm,” whether or not it is accompanied by fire. The human/non-human semantic line, where or if there is one, is easily crossed. One important further characteristic of the storm within, or the troubled mind/heart, is that it is not productive; as per the Wanderer’s dictum, it doesn’t help matters (ne se hrēo hyġe helpe gefremman, [nor does troubled thought afford any help], 16). Rather than, or in addition to, sadness, perhaps the storm is one of inner conflict, confusion, turmoil or anxiety, a symptom of a self in crisis. Consider one instance where the poet is very specific about the fact that Beowulf does not experience the “storm.” He has returned to Hygelac’s court, victorious, loaded with gifts, and the poet praises him at length for doing everything absolutely correctly, for observing to the letter all the lord-retainer protocols, and for husbanding his great strength appropriately (2159-83). Notably, he does not get drunk or indiscriminately kill comrades: næs him hrēoh sefa ([to him was not a troubled heart/mind], 2180). He is at peace with himself and thus able to be peaceable, apparently. Beowulf here possesses clarity, focus, and a measure of restraint in the deployment of his strength and the direction of his aggression. Many critics have suggested an implied comparison and contrast here of Beowulf’s state of mind with that of Heremod, who as we shall see, is deeply troubled. Shortly thereafter (within two hundred lines of text, but also at a distance of fifty years), the old Beowulf, now king, is told of the coming of the dragon.
(excerpted from chapter 2)