Beowa, Beaw, Beow, Beo or Bedwig is a figure in Anglo-Saxon paganism associated with barley

Barley

Barley is a major cereal grain, a member of the grass family. It serves as a major animal fodder, as a base malt for beer and certain distilled beverages, and as a component of various health foods...

 and agriculture

Agriculture

Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

. The figure is attested in the Anglo-Saxon

Anglo-Saxon

Anglo-Saxon may refer to:* Anglo-Saxons, a group that invaded Britain** Old English, their language** Anglo-Saxon England, their history, one of various ships* White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, an ethnicity* Anglo-Saxon economy, modern macroeconomic term...

 royal genealogies as they were extended in the age of Alfred

Alfred the Great

Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.Alfred is noted for his defence of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern England against the Vikings, becoming the only English monarch still to be accorded the epithet "the Great". Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself...

, where Beowa is inserted as the son of Scyld

Scyld

Scyld Scefing is the legendary ancestor of the Danish royal lineage known as the Scyldings. He is the counterpart of the Skioldus or Skjöldr of Danish and Icelandic sources....

 and the grandson of Sceafa, in lineages carried back to Adam. Connections have been proposed between the figure of Beowa and the hero Beowulf

Beowulf (hero)

Beowulf is a legendary Geatish hero and later turned king in the epic poem named after him, one of the oldest surviving pieces of literature in the English language.-Etymology and origins of the character:...

 of the poem of the same name

Beowulf

Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...

 and English folk song figure John Barleycorn

John Barleycorn

"John Barleycorn" is an English folksong. The character of John Barleycorn in the song is a personification of the important cereal crop barley and of the alcoholic beverages made from it, beer and whisky...

.

Etymology

Beow is an Old English word

Old English language

Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...

 for barley. In the Anglo-Saxon genealogies, Beowa is the son or grandson of Sceafa, the Old English word for sheaf. The noun beow has an Old Norse

Old Norse

Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....

 parallel in Bygg, the word for "grain." Related comparisons have been made between the figure of Beow and Byggvir

Byggvir

Byggvir is a figure in Norse mythology. The only surviving mention of Byggvir appears in the prose beginning of Lokasenna, and stanzas 55 through 56 of the same poem, where he is referred to as one of Freyr's servants and as the husband of Beyla....

, attested in the Prose Edda

Prose Edda

The Prose Edda, also known as the Younger Edda, Snorri's Edda or simply Edda, is an Icelandic collection of four sections interspersed with excerpts from earlier skaldic and Eddic poetry containing tales from Nordic mythology...

as a servant of the god Freyr

Freyr

Freyr is one of the most important gods of Norse paganism. Freyr was highly associated with farming, weather and, as a phallic fertility god, Freyr "bestows peace and pleasure on mortals"...

.

Theories

A consensus among scholars is that there is a distinct connection between the mythical figure of Beowa and the legendary Beowulf. As the two characters possess many of the same attributes, it has been suggested that "a god Beowa, whose existence in myth is certain, became confused or blended with Beowulf." It is possible that the scribe who wrote the copy of the epic which comes down to us subscribed to this conflation: at the beginning of the poem, there is a figure "Beowulf Scyldinga" (not the Beowulf of the title) who shares many properties with Beowa. Several modern scholars, such as Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney is an Irish poet, writer and lecturer. He lives in Dublin. Heaney has received the Nobel Prize in Literature , the Golden Wreath of Poetry , T. S. Eliot Prize and two Whitbread prizes...

, therefore translate "Beowulf" in this part of the poem as "Beow."

Kathleen Herbert draws a link between Beowa and the figure of John Barleycorn

John Barleycorn

"John Barleycorn" is an English folksong. The character of John Barleycorn in the song is a personification of the important cereal crop barley and of the alcoholic beverages made from it, beer and whisky...

of traditional English folksong. Herbert says that Beowa and Barleycorn are one and the same, noting that the folksong details the suffering, death, and resurrection of Barleycorn, yet also celebrates the "reviving effects of drinking his blood."