Bear's Son Tales are a group of tales found from Europe, Asia and North America, with over 200 known versions, first isolated and identified as such by Friedrich Panzer.
Contents
The best known of these tales is Beowulf. Others are the story of Bödvar Bjarki in material about Hrólf Kraki and an incident in the Grettis saga, while King Arthur, and Odysseus in the cave of Polyphemus, can also be related to the theme.
Core characteristics
Among the core characteristics of the story are a hero who was a feral child, raised by or descended from a bear, with bear-like attributes; a monster to be defeated, usually after others fail in the attempt; and a descent in pursuit into a netherworld or underground cavern. In some stories the monster defeats the hero instead.
Other frequently associated elements are a captive maiden, treason by a close friend or ally of the hero, magical weapons or talismans, and a smith as protective or persecutory figure.
The Bear's Son and Beowulf
J. R. R. Tolkien was very interested in the idea of the bear-son folktale underlying Beowulf, and pointed to several minor but illuminating characteristics supporting the assumption: Beowulf's uncouthness and appetite, the strength of his grip, and his refusal to use weapons against Grendel. He also saw Unferth as a link between folktale and legend, his (covert) roles as smith and treacherous friend standing behind his gift to Beowulf of the "hafted blade" that fails.
Critics of Panzer's thesis have argued however that many of the incidents he sees as specific to the Bear's Son Story are in fact generic folktale elements; and that a closer analogue to Beowulf is to be found in Celtic mythology and the story of the 'Monstrous Arm'.
Psychoanalytic interpretations
For psychoanalysis, the bear-parents represent the parents seen in their animal (sexual) guise - the bear as the dark, bestial aspect of the parental archetype. Their offspring, represented by Tolkien in Sellic Spell as "a surly, lumpish boy...slow to learn the speech of the land", is the undersocialised child. And in the underground struggle, Géza Róheim argued, we find a representation of the primal scene, as encapsulated in the infantile unconscious.