Editing Beorn (section)

== Analysis ==

=== Bear-like warrior ===

{{further|Beowulf in Middle-earth}}

[[File:Bronsplåt 2 fr Torslunda sn, Öland (Stjerna, Hjälmar och svärd i Beovulf (1903) sid 103).jpg|thumb|Beorn has been likened to a [[berserker]], a warrior fighting in a trance-like state of fury.<ref name="Lewis 2007"/> Illustrated is a [[Vendel era]] [[Torslunda plates|helmet plate]] from [[Öland]], [[Sweden]], depicting the god [[Odin]] guiding a berserker.]]

In naming his character, Tolkien used ''beorn'', an [[Old English]] word for "man" and "warrior" (with implications of "freeman" and "nobleman" in [[Anglo-Saxon]] society).<ref>See definition: {{Cite web|url=http://www.bosworthtoller.com/003757 |title=BEORN |work=[[An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary]] (Online) |last1=Bosworth |first1=Joseph |author-link=Joseph Bosworth |last2=Toller |first2=T. Northcote |location=Prague |publisher=[[Charles University]]}}, cognate to the [[Swedish language|Swedish]] and [[Icelandic language|Icelandic]] ''björn''</ref> The name is cognate with the [[Scandinavia]]n ''Björn'' or Bjørn, meaning ''bear''; and the figure of Beorn can be related to the traditional Northern heroes [[Bödvar Bjarki]] and [[Beowulf (hero)|Beowulf]], both of whose names also mean "bear".{{sfn|Shippey|2001|pages=31-32}}{{sfn|Shippey|2005|page=77}} The name Beorn survives in the name of the Scottish town [[Bo'ness#Toponymy|Borrowstounness]], which is derived from the Old English ''Beornweardstun'' ("the town with Beorn as its guardian").<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hanks |first1=Patrick |last2=Hodges |first2=Flavia |last3=Mills |first3=A. D. |last4=Room |first4=Adrian |title=The Oxford Names Companion |date=2002 |location=Oxford |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-860561-4 |page=951}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Ross |first=David |title=Scottish Place-Names |page=15 |publisher=[[Birlinn (publisher)|Birlinn]] |isbn=<!--no ISBN--> |oclc=213108856 }}</ref> The Tolkien scholar [[Tom Shippey]] comments that Beorn exemplifies the heroic [[Northern courage in Middle-earth|Northern courage]] that Tolkien later made a central virtue in his larger novel, ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', as he is ferocious, rude, and cheerful, characteristics that reflect his huge inner self-confidence.{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=91–92}} 

Paul W. Lewis, writing in ''[[Mythlore]]'', calls Beorn "essentially a [[berserker]] in battle", alluding to the Old Norse warriors who fought in a trance-like state of fury. The term means "bear-shirt"; its Old Norse form, ''hamrammr'', was taken by Tolkien to mean "skin-changer", and he gave Beorn this capability.<ref name="Lewis 2007">{{cite journal |last=Lewis |first=Paul W. |year=2007 |title=Beorn and Tom Bombadil: A Tale of Two Heroes |journal=[[Mythlore]] |volume=25 |issue=3 |at=Article 13 |url=https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol25/iss3/13 }}</ref>

{|class="wikitable sortable" style="margin: 1em auto;"
|+ Paul W. Lewis's analysis of Beorn and other bear-names for warriors known to Tolkien<ref name="Lewis 2007"/>
|-
! Name or term !! Language !! Literal meaning !! Description
|-
|Beorn ||Old English ||"Bear" ||Man as strong as a bear, warrior, chieftain; cf modern Scandinavian names Björn, Bjørn
|-
|[[Beowulf (hero)|Beowulf]] ||Old English ||"Bees' wolf" = honey-eater, bear ||Hero of the epic poem ''[[Beowulf]]''
|-
|[[Bödvar Bjarki]] ||Old Norse ||"Warlike little-bear" ||Hero of ''[[Hrólfs saga kraka]]''; a skin-changer, bear by day, a man by night
|-
|[[berserker]] ||Old English ||"Bear-shirt" ||Warrior who fights in a trance-like state of fury
|-
|''hamrammr'' ||Old Norse ||Taken by Tolkien as "Skin-changer" ||Were-bear, berserker
|}

=== Distinctive loner ===

Beorn's name for the large rock in the River Anduin, the Carrock, on the other hand, is not Germanic – whether Norse or English – but Brittonic, related to [[Welsh language|Welsh]] ''[[wikt:carreg|carreg]]'', "a stone".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Erat |first1=Vanessa |last2=Rabitsch |first2=Stefan |chapter="Croeso i Gymru"–where they speak Klingon and Sindarin: An essay in appreciation of conlangs and the land of the red dragon |title=The Polyphony of English Studies: A Festschrift for Allan James |publisher=Narr Francke Attempto Verlag |year=2017 |page=197 |isbn=978-3-8233-9140-1 }}</ref> The medievalist [[Marjorie Burns]] notes the tension between "British" and Norse in Tolkien's handling of his materials. This is one of many instances of what Clyde S. Kilby called "contrasistency" – Tolkien's apparently intentional "doubleness" or switching between opposite viewpoints. Burns comments that Beorn's story and character embody tensions "between forest and garden, home and wayside, comradeship and solitude, risk and security" and in her view most strongly between "freedom and obligation", not to mention bear and man.<ref name="Burns 1990">{{cite journal |last=Burns |first=Marjorie |author-link=Marjorie Burns |title=J. R. R. Tolkien: The British and the Norse in Tension |journal=Pacific Coast Philology |volume=25 |issue=1/2 (November 1990) |date=1990 |pages=49–59 |doi=10.2307/1316804 |jstor=1316804 }}</ref> Burns calls Beorn one of

{{quote|the most striking of Tolkien's individuals ... his innate, one-of-a-kind loners, the honorable isolationists, who dwell in secluded domains and ... are distinctive, free, self-reliant but respectful of other lives and hostile only to those deserving hostility.<ref name="Burns 1990"/>}}

The Tolkien scholar Justin Noetzel compares Beorn to [[Tom Bombadil]] in ''The Lord of the Rings'', another one-of-a-kind figure strongly attached to the place where he lives. Both have "an intimate connection with the natural world", using this to help their visitors, protecting them from local dangers, whether wolves and goblins, or [[Old Man Willow]] and the [[Barrow-wight]].<ref name="Noetzel 2014">{{cite book |last1=Noetzel |first1=Justin T. |editor1-last=Eden |editor1-first=Bradford Lee |title='The Hobbit' and Tolkien's Mythology |date=2014 |publisher=[[McFarland & Company]] |pages=161–180 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w3euBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA161 |chapter=Beorn and Bombadil: Mythology, Place and Landscape in Middle-earth|isbn=9781476617954 }}</ref>

=== Norse and English ===

[[File:Gawain and the Green Knight.jpg|thumb|upright|Beorn has been likened to [[Bertilak]], the Green Knight encountered by Sir Gawain on his journey north.<ref name="Burns 1990"/> Painting from [[Pearl Manuscript|the manuscript]] of ''[[Sir Gawain and the Green Knight]]''.]]

Burns writes that Beorn's character, too, contains a complex tension between Norse and English. As a skin-changer he is evidently [[Paganism|pagan]] and Norse; but his vegetarianism, reluctance to use metal, home-loving nature and flower garden all look more compatible with Christianity and Englishness, without being those things specifically. Burns comments that he is thus<ref name="Burns 1990"/>

{{quote|in the best Tolkienian tradition, a being of two extremes: both ruthless and kind, a bear and man, a
homebody and wanderer, a berserker and pacifist in one.<ref name="Burns 1990"/>}}

Burns states that this blending of wild Norse with civilised English can be seen in [[Middle English literature]] such as ''[[Sir Gawain and the Green Knight]]''. Gawain meets a big rugged Beorn-like shape-changer, [[Bertilak]] (the Green Knight), who lives in a castle in an oak forest, and speaks with Christian courtesy. She calls ''Sir Gawain''{{'}}s oaks "entirely [[druid]]ic", suggesting [[Celtic mythology]] or [[Arthurian legend]]. But she notes that "the oak was sacred to [the Norse god] [[Thor]]", allowing Tolkien to assemble Celtic and Norse elements in his composite Middle-earth. Further, she writes, Beorn's home has an almost diagrammatic set of circles of "mixed English and Nordic characteristics": at the centre the Nordic hall; the "[[The Shire|Shire]]-like flower garden" and courtyard; a wider yard (Norse ''gaard'') with its outbuildings; a "high thorn-hedge" in English style; a "belt of tall and very ancient oaks" (English or Norse) and fields of flowers; little English-like hills and valleys with oaks and elms; "wide grass-lands, and a river running through it all", which remind Burns of Iceland; and finally "the mountains", evidently Norse.<ref name="Burns 1990"/>

<gallery mode=packed heights=350px>
File:Beorn Circles.svg|Diagram of [[Marjorie Burns]]'s analysis of mixed Norse and English influence on Beorn's dwelling-place<ref name="Burns 1990"/>
</gallery>