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on his Danish expedition, the Geatish king was described with the epithet “the slayer of Ongentheow” (line 1968), an old king of the Swedes. (However, as we learn later, Hygelac did not actually kill him, though he led the attack in which Eofer, one of his warriors, killed Ongentheow.)
    2. After Hygelac’s death, his son King Heardred was killed by invading Swedes, thus bringing Beowulf to the throne (lines 2200-2210).
    3. After Hygelac’s death, Queen Hygd offered the throne to Beowulf, who deferred to Heardred. Heardred supported Eanmund and Eadgils, sons of Ohtere, in their feud against their uncle Onela, the Swedish king. The Swedes attacked and killed Heardred, whereupon Beowulf became king and subsequently supported Eadgils’ retaliatory attack in which Eadgils appears most likely to have killed Onela and then to have become Swedish king (lines 2369-2396).
    4. Beowulf’s recollection of Haethcyn killing Herebeald, his older brother, in an archery accident (lines 2435-2443).
    5. Beowulf’s recollection that when Hrethel died, Haethcyn succeeded him and was attacked by Ohtere and Onela, the sons of the old Swedish king, Ongentheow. When Haethcyn retaliated, he was killed, but he was avenged when Eofor, a warrior under Hygelac’s command, killed Ongentheow (lines 2472-2489).
    6. Seeing Beowulf suffering alone in the Dragon fight, Wiglaf seized the sword of his father Weohstan (apparently a Swede), which had belonged to Eanmund when Weohstan slew him. Weohstan won Eanmund’s sword and war gear in his service to Onela, the Swedish king, who remained silent about the killing of Eanmund, his nephew as well as his enemy. Weohstan later gave the sword and other war gear to his son Wiglaf while then among the Geats (lines 2610-2625).
    7. After Beowulf’s death, Wiglaf forecast the Geats’ total loss because of their shameful flight from their lord in need, making them vulnerable to their enemies (lines 2884-2891).
    8. Sent by Wiglaf to the other Geats, the Messenger then forecast doom from Franks and Frisians to the south for Hygelac’s earlier raid in Frisia (where Hygelac was killed), as well as from Swedes to the north for the Ravenswood battle where Ongentheow killed Haethcyn and pursued the Geats until Hygelac saved them with a relief force; whereupon Ongentheow retreated to his fortification, was pursued, struck down the Geatish warrior Wulf, whose brother Eofor then killed Ongentheow. Hygelac richly rewarded both brothers, but gave Eofor the greater gift of his only daughter in marriage. The Messenger predicts, in greater detail than Wiglaf, the coming fall of the Geats for Ongentheow’s (un-avenged) death (lines 2900-3027).
    There is, of course, much here that is very confusing to a modern reader, but this is the order in which Beowulf presents the narrative of the Swedish-Geatish wars. As the summary shows, each piece of the narrative is a fragment of some larger story, and we are never given that larger story within the epic as it stands. Moreover, these fragmentary references are generally separated by considerable lengths from one another, and they are not presented in chronological order. If we want to make clear their chronological order, we would have to rearrange the eight fragments as follows: The sequence would begin with fragments 4, 5, and 8 (which also partially explains the sense of fragment 1), and then proceed with fragments 2 and 3 together with some details explained by fragment 6, followed by fragment 7 and the last part of fragment 8. (Readers who do not wish to try this exercise will find full explanations of the action of the poem in the notes to the main text.)
    If the audience were listening to an oral performance, its members would have to rearrange this sequence in their heads, which would only seem possible if the poet and audience already had a larger traditional narrative in their cultural memory that put all the fragments in meaningful order. Thus, the poet-narrator can