Beowulf (and the other Sister)

A companion to Beowulf: The Poet’s Tale

The man was surprised to see me, I knew he would be, they always were. I always liked that moment of introduction, when they knew beforehand I was a very rich and important lady and then got a good look at me. It didn’t matter that I was fair skinned and beautiful, I was still darker than any of them. I was still not European.

“Miss, um…” He stared at me blankly. He was a small, well rounded and his grey hair that was thinning on the top. He was exactly what I imagined a librarian would look like.

“Catherine Earnshaw,” I assured him, offering my hand. I had been using the Earnshaw name at that point for nearly a century, building up an imagined family in America.

When news came about the fire I wasted no time in booking a voyage back to England.

“Ah, yes,” he kissed my hand and I smiled politely. “I was expecting, uh… was the journey here very hard?”

“Not in the least Dr. Bentley, I’m rather fond of travelling the ocean.”

We began to walk into the building that was now holding the Cotton Library, a collection of old books compiled by Sir Robert Cotton longer than this man had been alive.

“I admit I was rather surprised to hear you were coming-”

“Did you receive my letter?” I cut him off.

“Yes, I brought the document you requested. We actually only just re-catalogued it and assessed its damage. Since the fire everything has been a little hectic around here, as I am sure you can imagine.”

“I can,” I was more than familiar with fires.

We went to a back room, an office with large windows that looked out onto the garden. On a small table by the window he had set out tea.

“Please,” he pulled out the chair and I sat down, admiring the flowers outdoors. It was the height of summer, the fire had occurred in October. I could imagine soft snow falling and a great fire raging in the middle of the calm, but I knew my imagination was probably a lot grander than it had actually been.

“If I may be so bold,” he began as he poured me a cup of tea. “In your letter you mentioned it was important to your family. I was wondering exactly what connection your family has with the document.”

“Lawrence Nowell,” I replied, taking a sip from my cup.

“Sorry?”

“Lawrence Nowell, the man who gave the document to Sir Cotton.”

“Ah yes,” he smiled. “Then you are somehow related to Mr. Nowell?”

Somehow, because I was a different race.

“No, you see Mr. Nowell actually acquired the document from my great-grandmother,” me actually. “I am simply here to ensure that my family’s unintentional gift to this fine library is all right.”

“I assure you that since the fire we have taken every measure to ensure all the documents were well taken care of,” he said adamantly. “There is nothing more important to me than this collection. I was there the night of the fire. I did everything I could to save them then.”

I smiled. “I heard you jumped out a window clutching one of them to your chest.”

He blushed. “I’m sorry to say it was only through the door I escaped.”

“But still, you did escape, and quite fashionably.”

My tea was finished.

“I don’t mean to be rude Dr. Bentley, but I am rather anxious to see the document.”

“Yes, of course,” we stood and went to the desk, wrapped in leather on the desk was the Cotton Vitellius , the document that contained Beowulf.

I felt a surge of excitement rush through my body. I hadn’t seen that document in hundreds of years.

“May I?” I reached out. He didn’t have a chance to respond before my hand was on the paper, feeling the scrawls of ink on it.

“Be careful,” he whimpered.

“Have you read it?” I looked at him, a twinkle in my eye.

“I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure.”

“It is a very good story. Heoism, monsters, a grand adventure,” I looked back at it. “Almost a complete fabrication I’m afraid.”

At one point in time, it had been completely true. When Beowulf had lived, the stories had been true. Then my sister put his story on paper. She wrote the original poem, wrote it was truthfully as she could without writing herself into it. So of course her version ended up being a lie as well.

I managed to read that poem before she threw it on a fire. I liked it, but knew I could make it better. So I did. I re-wrote it with the help of a couple monk scribes. They changed it even further.

What lay before me, it was a culmination of writers. Really, no one had written it at all; except maybe Beowulf, and the people who would tell stories about him after his death. He had become a legend, a myth, but the truth was that he had lived once.

The document was frayed at the edges, and now had singe marks as well. It had barely managed to escape that fire my sister was constantly trying to throw it into.

There was no doubt in my mind that my sister had lit this fire, not caring what was lost in the collateral damage.

“I suggest you take very good care of this document,” I wrapped it in the leather again.

“Of course, all out documents are-”

“No, not all of them, just this one. I only care about this one,” when my sister wanted something destroyed this much, I wanted to make sure it survived even more.

“Um… yes, well, I will make sure it gets the best of care.”

I smiled. “I must be off now.”

“But, you only just arrived.”

“Yes, and my ship is leaving early tomorrow morning.”

“You’ve come all this way for… for one day?” For someone mortal, the idea of travelling such great distances for once day was insanity. For me it was something to do to pass in infinite time.

“Now maybe you understand just how important this document is.”

The document was safe for now. My sister would think it destroyed for a while yet, certainly enough time for copies to be made and translations written.

Beowulf would exist again.

(Dear lord, I promised to post this half a year ago… more than half a year ago. What can I say? I got sidetracked. So to explain, this was the originally going to be the prologue to Beowulf: The Poet’s Tale. Then I realized it didn’t fit the mood, and the changeover from Osis speaking to Isis speaking would be too confusing, so I took it out and book it in the other mystical novel. If you’ve read the other stories then this short story won’t be too confusing, if you haven’t… then maybe you should read the others, specifically Beowulf: the Poet’s Tale (which, despite the look of it, is a very fast read). Everything about this chapter is historically accurate as I could find. The year it takes place in is 1732, the year after the ironically named Ashburnam House burned down and nearly took the only copy of Beowulf with it. Close call.)