Beowulf and the Battle with Grendel

Author: Traditional

Time Period: 501 CE–1000 CE

Country or Culture: England

Genre: Legend

PLOT SUMMARY

In the anonymous Anglo-Saxon epic that bears his name, the Geat warrior Beowulf (who hails from a Scandinavian land) faces and vanquishes three monsters: Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and a dragon. The most famous and influential of these battles is the first, during which Beowulf mortally wounds the murderous creature known as Grendel in Heorot (Herot), the hall of the Danish king Hroðgar (Hrothgar). Until the arrival of Beowulf and his companions, Heorot has lain empty because of Grendel’s predations on the Danes. Beowulf, a famed monster-slayer, crosses the sea with the Geats in order to rid Hroðgar’s realm of the demonic creature.

The episode opens with Grendel journeying from his home in the swamps far from Heorot. The monster has traveled this route many times in the past and always with the same result of brutally murdering Hroðgar’s men and terrorizing the Danes. This night will end differently, however, for the men asleep in Heorot are not Danes, but Geats accompanied by the watchful Beowulf.

Grendel silently and swiftly sneaks across the empty moors to Heorot only to rip the doors of the great hall from their hinges. When he assails his first victim, the monster rips the man apart, chews him up, drinks his blood, and gobbles his remains. Eerily, Grendel’s destructive entrance and violent attack do not seem to disturb the men sleeping in Heorot. The only one aware of his presence is Beowulf, who witnesses the murder of his companion but does not intervene. Only when the monster reaches for the great warrior lying on the floor does Beowulf respond.

Earlier in the epic, Beowulf vows to Hroðgar and the Danes that he will fight the monster unarmed. He reasons that Grendel fears no man and bears no weapon, and so must be dealt with in kind. True to his word, Beowulf seizes the monster’s grasping claw in his bare hands. Shocked and suddenly filled with fear because he has “met a man whose hands were harder” (line 753), Grendel attempts to flee the warrior’s grip. Beowulf stands up in order to get a surer grasp on the monster, break his claws, and kill him. The intensity of their struggle and the monster’s frantic shrieks shake Heorot to its shingles, terrifying the Danes.

As Grendel’s moaning becomes louder and his attempts to escape become more desperate, Beowulf’s companions wake and try to join the fray. Strapping on shields and drawing blades, they discover their weapons have been enchanted by the monster: “that sin-stained demon / Had bewitched all men’s weapons, laid spells / That blunted every mortal man’s blade” (lines 803–5). Despite his sorcery, Grendel is no match for Beowulf’s power. For the first and last time, the monster realizes that his mortal foe is filled with divine strength and that he is being punished by God through Beowulf’s deeds. Even so, the creature manages to pull himself from the warrior’s clasp, tearing his arm from his body. He escapes back to his swamp and dies of his wounds.

Beowulf hangs the dismembered limb from Heorot’s rafters. On the morning after the battle, warriors from many lands converge on Hroðgar’s hall to see the monstrous claw and to track Grendel’s bloody footprints to the edges of his swamp. They marvel at the gore he leaves behind and rejoice at his doom.

SIGNIFICANCE

Beowulf is an epic poem written in England sometime between the eighth and eleventh centuries CE. It was composed in the Old English language commonly referred to as Anglo-Saxon, a Germanic predecessor to the modern English language. Its author remains unknown. Though English in origin, the work describes events occurring in Scandinavia and conveys values characteristic of the Scandinavian groups that invaded the British Isles in the early years of the Common Era.

One of the decidedly Anglo-Saxon themes running throughout Beowulf is individuality as an indication of one’s superiority or wretchedness. In the battle between the warrior and Grendel, both characters are described as singular examples of mortal beings. The distinction between them is that Beowulf is a civilized man who lives and acts to preserve the common good of others who share a commitment to social order. Grendel, on the other hand, is profoundly isolated both by his gruesome deeds and by his lineage as a descendent of Cain, the first murderer in human history according to the Judeo-Christian Bible.

Grendel is one of the most compelling characters in comparative literature. The monster is described throughout Beowulf in language that conveys violence and cruelty. Grendel’s bloodthirsty nature results from his status as creature that even God hates. In this passage, for example, Grendel is “snarling and fierce” (line 725). He is “forever joyless” and moves “angrily” (720, 723) while “hoping to kill (712).” The sight of warriors vulnerable and helpless as they sleep in Hroðgar’s hall makes him “hot / With the thought of food and the feasting his belly / Would soon know” (733–35). In addition to the merciless and animalistic language used to describe the monster, the poem further emphasizes his separateness from humans by identifying his lair as a place far from Heorot, a “miserable hole at the bottom of the marsh” isolated even from the air breathed by men and other earthly creatures.

In contrast, Beowulf possesses social and political status among other men. Though a great warrior, he does not lead his people. Rather, he remains “Higlac’s brave follower” (line 813). Even so, Beowulf is a “mighty protector of men” (790) whose defeat of Grendel grants him “new glory” (819) precisely because he fulfills his promise to another tribe: “the Danes / Had been served as he’d boasted he’d serve them” (828–29). The language of hierarchy and service underscores the idea that Beowulf, though an exemplary fighter, still belongs to a larger community bound by oaths and other shared expectations that recognizes the preserving power of sacrifice.

Beowulf’s deference to these ideas is so complete that he fights Grendel without weapons, relying instead on the righteousness of his cause to lead him to victory. Some scholars claim that the overtly Christian allusions and ideas evident in Beowulf, such as the references to hell and an almighty being watching over human affairs, are later additions to the original poem. Readers must decide for themselves whether these additions reinforce or undermine the depiction of Beowulf’s excellences.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Benson, Larry. “The Originality of Beowulf.” The Interpretation of Narrative. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1970. 1–44. Print.

Irving, Edward B., Jr. “Christian and Pagan Elements.” A Beowulf Handbook. Ed. Robert E. Bjork and John D. Niles. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1998. 175–92. Print.

Niles, John D. “Beowulf’s Great Hall.” History Today 56.10 (2006): 40–44. Print.

Raffel, Burton, trans. Beowulf. New York: New Amer. Lib., 1963. Print.

Tolkien, J. R. R. “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.” Proceedings of the British Academy 22 (1936): 245–95. Print.