Editing Heorot (section)

=== Harty, Kent ===

Though Heorot is widely considered a literary construction, a theory proposed in 1998 by the archaeologist Paul Wilkinson<!--then director of the Faversham Archaeological Field School, https://www.questia.com/magazine/1G1-53461156/beowulf-new-light-on-the-dark-ages--> has suggested that it was based on a hall at [[Harty, Swale|Harty]] on the [[Isle of Sheppey]], which would have been familiar to the anonymous Anglo-Saxon author; Harty was indeed named Heorot in Saxon times. He suggests that the steep shining sea-cliffs of ''Beowulf'' would match the pale cliffs of [[Sheerness]] on that island, its name meaning "bright headland". An inlet near Harty is named "Land's End", like Beowulf's landing-place on the way to Heorot. The sea-journey from the [[Rhine]] to [[Kent]] could take the day and a half mentioned in the poem. The road to Heorot is described as a ''straet'', a [[Roman Road]], of which there are none in Scandinavia, but one leads across the Isle of Harty to a Roman settlement, possibly a villa. The [[toponymist]] [[Margaret Gelling]] observed that the description in ''Beowulf'' of Heorot as having a ''fagne flor'', a shining or coloured floor, could "denote the paved or [[Mosaic|tessellated floor]] of a Roman building". Finally, the surrounding area was named ''[[Lathe of Scray|Schrawynghop]]'' in the Middle Ages, ''schrawa'' meaning "demons" and ''hop'' meaning "land enclosed by marshes", suggestive of [[Grendel]]'s lonely fens in the poem.<ref>{{cite news |last=Hammond |first=Norman |title=How Beowulf's lair was pinned down to the Thames Estuary |work=[[The Times]] |date=7 December 1998}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Wilkinson |first1=Paul |title=Beowulf - On the Island of Harty in Kent |date=2017 |publisher=Kent Archaeological Field School |asin=B07Q27K3XG}}</ref> The archaeologist Paul Budden acknowledged "the story appealed" to him as a Kentish man, but felt that (as Wilkinson conceded) the subject was "mythology, not archaeology or science".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Budden |first=Gary |title=Background reading: Beowulf in Kent by Dr Paul Wilkinson |url=http://www.kafs.co.uk/archive/16%20-%20Winter%202017.pdf |journal=Kent Archaeological Field School Newsletter |issue=16 (Christmas 2017) |access-date=9 December 2020 |pages=22–23 |date=2017}}</ref>