Global InformationBreca the Bronding information
Breca (sometimes spelled Breoca or Brecca) was a Bronding who, according to the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, was Beowulf's childhood friend. Breca defeated Beowulf in what, by consensus,[1] is described as a swimming match.
While dining, Unferth alludes to the story of their contest as a reproach to Beowulf's impulsiveness and foolhardiness, and Beowulf then relates it in detail, explaining how he needed to stop and defeat multiple sea monsters (nicors) during the match, so, although he arrived at the goal after Breca, his was the more worthy journey.
In line 522 of Beowulf, Breca is identified as lond Brondinga (“of the Brondings’ land"). Breca is also mentioned in Widsith, an Anglo-Saxon poem (also known, usually by the translations of Benjamin Thorpe, as The Skôp, or The Gleema's Tale, or The Skald's Tale) known only from a 10th-century copy, as the ruler (in some unspecified previous century) of the Brondings (line 25 of Widsith):
- Cassere weold Creacum, ond Caelic Finnum, ... Caesar rules the Greeks, and Caelic the Finns, ...
- Meaca Myrgingum, Mearchealf Hundingum, Meaca the Myrinings, Marchalf the Hundings,
- þeodric weold Froncum, þyle Rondingum, Theodoric ruled the Franks, Thyle the Rondings,
- Breoca Brondingum, Billing Wernum, ..... Breca the Brondings, Billing the Wernas, .....
This is presumably the same Breca as mentioned in Beowulf. In Beowulf, Breca is further identified, in line 524, as sunu Bēanstānes (“Beanstan’s son”), as if the name Breca and the mention of Beanstan would be familiar enough to Unferth's audience to adequately identify him (although Beanstan is not otherwise mentioned in any surviving document[2] ).
It was long ago theorized that the Brondings and Breca lived on the island of Brännö outside of modern Gothenburg (the second largest city in Sweden).[3] On the other hand, from the mention in Widsith, with the Brondings mentioned immediately before the Wernas (and the Wernas supposedly being the Varini on the Elbe), it has been suggested that the Brondings might have located near them, perhaps in Mecklenburg or Pomerania.[4] It has even been suggested that the Brondings, whose name suggests the crashing of waves, are entirely mythical.[5]
- ^ R.D. Fulk, “Afloat in Semantic Space: Old English sund and the Nature of Beowulf’s Exploit with BrecaÏ, Journal of English & Germanic Philology, vol.104, nr.4 (Oct. 2005) p.458.
- ^ Tom Shippey, “Names in Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon England”, in Leonard Neidorf, ed., The Dating of Beowulf: A Reassessment (2014, Suffolk, UK, D.S. Brewer) pp.63-64.
- ^ Benjamine Thorpe, Codex Exoniensis: A Collection of Anglo-Saxon Poetry with an English Translation (1842, London, Society of Antiquaries of London) p.514; R.W. Chambers, Widsith: A Study in Old English Heroic Legend (1912, Cambridge Univ. Press) p.111.
- ^ Thomas Arnold, Notes on Beowulf (1898, London, Longmans, Green & Co.) p.61.
- ^ R.W. Chambers, Widsith: A Study in Old English Heroic Legend (1912, Cambridge Univ. Press) p.111.