[Boasts] The Heroic Boast

Where are all the good men gone, and where are all the gods?

“The god of war resigns his room to me.” Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine

In English, the word boast comes from the Old English word bēot, which in turn comes from earlier bíhát, meaning promise or vow. In the Early Medieval Europe, boasting—often in the form of vows amid feasting and merry-making—played a significant and complex role in political and military affairs. These societies had a warrior ethos, central to which was masculine valour and the gaining of fame, renown, and the love of one’s people.

Some of the best-known examples of boasting in Early Medieval literature come from Beowulf, an Old English epic poem. Beowulf is filled with bēots, heroic boasts, which recount lineages and past feats, and declare intentions to perform dangerous acts. Beowulf himself boasts of his intention to fight Grendel, the monstrous antagonist, unarmed and alone.

Some analysts draw a distinction between a boast (about the past) and a vow (about the future). I am not a big fan of this distinction. Boasts and vows tend to arrive in a tangle, in the same way past and future arrive in a tangle. As Dwight Conquergood puts it:

Boasting could be interpreted as empty pomp and self display only if the opening recounting of past glory were isolated from other parts of the boast. The performer may begin with a recalling of the past, but it is soon clear that the past is made present as it is brought to bear upon some future situation. Recalling of past heroism is transmuted into a calling forth of future exploits.

In other words, it is all Beowulf’s past feats of slaying giants and sea monsters that qualify him to contend with Grendel. It suggests one situation in modern life where boasting is acceptable, even expected. Thanks so much for being here today Beowulf. We’d like to kick off by asking you, what drew you to this role?

Then the best men of my people,

wise men, advised me, King Hrothgar,

that I should seek you, because they know

the power of my strength, saw it themselves

when I came, bloodied by enemies,

from combat, where I bound five, destroyed

a tribe of giants, and in the waves

slew water-monsters by night. I endured

dire distress, avenged wrongs to the Geats,

crushed the hostile ones; and now I alone

with Grendel, with the monster, shall hold

a meeting with the demon …

Fabulous. And where do you see yourself in five years?

In this culture, boasts served several important functions. They were a form of self-assertion and a way for warriors to build their reputation. By voicing these intentions, warriors placed their honour on the line, in turn motivating them to follow through on their words. Boasts also acted something like a verbal contract, a promise to the community that the warrior would perform what they claimed.

Warriors would not just be competing with one another. They would also be comparing their deeds to those of historical and legendary figures, made present in the mead hall by the praise of a poet. Here’s Dwight Conquergood again:

The Anglo-Saxon scop, the professional tribal poet-performer, celebrated cultural values by singing epics on occasions of great ceremony and festivity. While he probably held his audience in rapt attention during his heroic recitations, the evening was not his alone. His performance was only a part, albeit an important part, interwoven within a larger performance context of conviviality and celebration which included feasting, mead drinking, gift giving, harp playing displaying of trophies, and boasting. [...] The audience, under the spell of the scop's words, was not made up of passive entertainment seekers, but of aggressive participants in the merry-making who would be allowed, through the culturally accepted convention of boasting, their own turn to perform. One by one, many of them would stand up in front of their lord and peers, and proclaim their self-worth in a stylized solo declamation, which all recognized as a beat or gilp (boast). The surface theatricality of these ceremonial speeches of self-praise belies their utter seriousness. Boasts launched men upon, and held them to, courses of action which had life and death consequences.

Women’s status within these rituals remains a little unclear. Frankly, there are a few red flags. The daughter of Hæreth passed through the hall, cared for the people, bore the cup to the hand of the hero. Hostesses meekly bear mead-cups to the men, making sure to honour them in order of hierarchy.

Then again, might there be more agency here than immediately meets the eye? The dynamics of gendered power are not always legible even in good lighting — never mind the shadowy mead halls of heroic antiquity. Certainly, it is not to any man, but to Queen Wealhtheow, that Beowulf makes his formal boast to slay Grendel or die in the attempt. 

Overall, however, it does all sound a bit toxic. In one sense it was literally a bit toxic — with mead flowing freely, the boastful warriors may well have felt intoxicated. Slake it till you make it: The beot elevates that feeling of ‘Oh my God, what did I say last night?’ into a full-blown system of political and military decision-making. Perhaps this too points to a mode of informal feminine power, the power to shape the relative pace at which different members of the warband grow intoxicated.

After all, you might just boast yourself to death. In the Old Norse Saga of the Jómsvíkinga, King Sweinn lures the Jómsvíkinga into a series of drunken boasts. By the sober light of day, the Jómsvíkinga rue that they have “spoken more than enough.” Nevertheless, when you get super wasted and say you’re going to invade Norway, that’s what you have to do.

It doesn’t end very well for the Jómsvíkinga:

All upon wooden log together, sat Vagn and his men.

Thorkel in his hands hefted a heavy axe, slicing and dicing at the last viking in the line.

So were the Jómsvíkinga wrong to carry out their drunken boasts? Their attitudes on the log are rather odd. They don’t show many signs of regret. They are in a playful, expansive mood. One uses his death as an opportunity for occult experimentation:

Vagn and the vikings were bound, fastened by their feet, but had their hands free.  

One said, “I’ll press this cloak-pin into the earth, 

if I still exist, after my head is cut off.”

His head came off, but the cloak-pin fell from his hand.  

Another spies the opportunity for a gory prank:

There sat also a very handsome man with long hair, who twisted his hair over his head,

tilted his neck, and said, “Don't you dare make my hair bloody.”

A man took the hair in his hands and held it fast.  

Thorkel hewed with his axe, but the condemned man

moved madly with a courageous cringe, and the hair-holder fell forward,

so Thorkel’s axe sliced cut off both hands, and stuck fast in the earth.

To a modern sensibility, getting drunk may seem like a strange way to make big plans with life-or-death consequences. Shouldn’t leaders have clear, rational minds when they lead?

Whether or not they should, or could, it is clear that they often don’t. Substances with psychoactive properties have long been part of practices of prophecy, leadership and decision-making. Visions and revelations experienced during altered states of consciousness might be interpreted as omens. Peyote in Central America; iboga in Gabon; fly agaric in Siberia; cocaine in Westminster.

Perhaps it is the pretense of cool, neutral rationality that is really risky. Perhaps leadership is by its nature always a little deranged, and perhaps it is better to shape that derangement according to patterns all can share.

I am interested in these archaic boasts, and how they might echo down the centuries: in hashtags of Instagram and Tik-Tok influencers, in the flexes of hip-hop artists, in queer pride and queer Pride, in the petty jealousies of authors and artists, in the generous anarchy of mutual aid communities. I hope to explore this topic, right here on Jonlyfans. Let me warn you: these will be the best Substack posts ever written.