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Folk tale classification type

"Bear's Son Tale" (link=no) refers to an analogous group of narratives that, according to 's 1910 thesis, represent the fairy tale material reworked to create the Anglo Saxon poem Beowulfs first part, the Grendel kin Story. Panzer collected over 200 analogue tales mostly from Eurasia. Others have added more examples from worldwide. The Bear's Son motif (B635.1) is exhibited only generally, not reliably. Exceptions include versions of "Jean de l'Ours", and the Grimms' fairy tale "Strong Hans" or "". Beowulf does not explicitly reveal a bear origin for its hero, but his name and great strength connect him to the animal closely. Most of the tales are formally catalogued as either Aarne Thompson Uther folktale type 301, "The Three Stolen Princesses" or ATU type 650A, "Strong John" or "Starker Hans".

Studies comparing the poem Beowulf to the Bear's Son Tale see these common core characteristics: a hero is raised by or descended from a bear, with bear like strength. He and companions must guard a dwelling against a monster (which Panzer calls "Der Dämon im Waldhaus"). The companions are defeated, but the hero wounds the creature, sending him to flight. In pursuit, the hero descends into a netherworld or underground domain. The hero often has a second round of adversaries. Other common elements are a captive princess, betrayal by a close friend or ally of the hero, and magical weapons. Some of these elements are paralleled in the Grendel story in Beowulf, others are not.

Some of the traits in the Bear's Son Tale regarded as being paralleled in Beowulf will be explained further below.

The betrayal element (F601.3) transpires in the fairy tale version (see Jean de l'Ours) as follows: After the hero descends to the world underground and rescues the princess, he is betrayed by his companions, who instead of pulling him up by a rope, either cut it or release it so he falls to the bottom. The parallel to this in Beowulf, (according to Panzer and Chambers) is that after seeing blood come up from Grendel's mere (lake), the Danes only wait until nones (3 PM) in the afternoon, and then they abandon the hero at the lake.

The hero in the Bear's Son Tale may have a magic sword (motif D1081, usually found in Type 301A) or a walking stick (Type 301B). Refn|group="lower alpha"|To be more precise, the magic sword given to the hero by a princess is more typical of Type 301A (the "fruit d'or" type), but it usually lacks the "bear's son" motif. A heavy iron walking stick forged by himself is the weapon of the hero in Jean de l'Ours (John of the Bear), which is Type 301B. This is shown by example tales and analysis by symbols given by Delarue.

Regarding Beowulf wrenching Grendel's arm off, Robert A. Barakat stated that no counterpart was to be found in the Bear' Son Tale of "Juan del Oso" (Spanish version of Jean de l'Ours). This was because there was no mention of "actual physical damage [Juan] inflicted" on the devil during the barehanded wrestling phase. However, Juan did cut off one of the devil's ears afterwards with his weapon. For a folktale analogue to Grendel's severed arm, commentators have looked on Celtic (Irish) tale of "The Hand and Child" type. The parallel had been recognized already in the 19th century by several writers, but Carl Wilhelm von Sydow is generally credited with developing the analysis which took notice.

Beowulf determines Grendel's lair by following a trail of blood. Although this is not specifically mirrored in the Bear's Son Tale, the hero is able to track the adversary to a hole in the ground (or a well), and a trail of blood has been speculated. Chambers found that an Icelandic Bear's Son Tale, "Bjarndrengur" ("Bear boy") parallels this exactly, and Bear boy and his companions follow the blood trail of the giant who had been grabbed by the beard but who has torn away.

's monumental study, Studien zur germanischen Sagengeschichte, Part I: Beowulf, sought to prove that Beowulf was an eighth century Anglo Saxon reworking of the "Bear's son" motif, which has been present since antiquity and widely disseminated. Later, the Panzer hypothesis on Beowulf was supported by W. W. Lawrence and R. W. Chambers, who elucidated and expanded on it. John F. Vickrey, who took up the thesis in 2009, wrote that there were very few studies focusing on folklore origins of Beowulf for 40 years as of his writing. 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'.

Panzer's list did not include any North American examples, but "Bear's son" tales have been known to have disseminated to native North American populations, and these are considered to have European origins, an example being the Assiniboine story published as "The Underground Journey" by Robert H. Lowie in 1909. Therefore, a more elaborate explanation has been advanced, which postulates Arthur's prototype to be the mythological Arcturus "guardian of the bear" of constellation lore. Odysseus – 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.