Why Unferth?

Someone recently asked me, "Why Unferth? I mean, if you're going to write about somebody from another story, at least pick someone we know!"

Well, there's the rub.  First, let us all agree that this "someone" could not have been one of my students. You faithful troops all know Unferth. You are forced to. We read and reread Beowulf's boast and counter-boast; we focus on Unferth to study his role as a foil. We dissect what he says and how he says it. In fact, we hit that section so hard that my classes are typically recast afterward as those who love Unferth and those (select few, Student H...) who hate him.

But to answer this question:

It is precisely because people don't know him that I chose him. And not to play some high-brow literati game with you, gentle reader. Consider this simple truth, one that is highlighted in the "Introduction" section of Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf: everyone knows the other myths (Helen of Troy, Jason and the Golden Fleece, killing the Kraken); and everyone knows the other heroes (Achilles, Hector, Odysseus), the other villains, etc. In short, everyone can rattle off, or at least nod at, the Greek and Roman canon of mythology. Very few recognize names like Hrothgar, Sigemund, Heremod, Unferth.

What happened to the English canon? Why don't we know about Unferth?

Beowulf stands as the oldest surviving story written in Old English. Our language. It is one of four pieces of literature captured in a single document now called the Nowell Codex. This document can still be viewed in the British Library in London. Important names like Shield Shiefson and Billa Celest and Hrunting are printed in that document. Names like Breca and Beowulf and Grendel.

Names like Unferth.