My exhibit discusses the sea monsters that Beowulf boasted of fighting in lines 539-569 of Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf. In this passage, Beowulf responds to Unferth’s recounting of Beowulf losing a swimming contest to Breca by saying that he was attacked by sea monsters during this contest, and that he successfully slew the monsters. According to Beowulf, his slaying of the monsters made the sea safe for sailors, and so it was an act of heroism, rather than a shameful defeat.
My main artifact is the map of Iceland published in the 1590 and later editions of Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, an atlas by Abraham Ortelius. The map features sea monsters which are labelled and described. Some of these sea monsters came from the Old Norse tale The King’s Mirror (Fernandez, 61). I will compare the description of the Whale in the Theatrum with that of a medieval bestiary produced circa 1200, and I will compare the inclusion of the sea monsters on the map to a 15th century Danish warship with a monstrous figurehead. I will discuss how the sea monsters in maps and stories reflected medieval beliefs about the dangers sailors faced in the sea.