Hrunting

Hrunting was a magical sword given to Beowulf by Unferth in the ancient Old English epic of the same name. Beowulf used it in battle against Grendel's Mother.

Beowulf is described receiving the sword in lines 1455-1458:

:"And another item lent by Unferth:at that moment of need was of no small importance::the brehon handed him a hilted weapon,:a rare and ancient sword named Hrunting.:The iron blade with its ill-boding patterns:had been tempered in blood. It had never failed:the hand of anyone who hefted it in battle,:anyone who had fought and faced the worst:in the gap of danger. This was not the first time:it had been called to perform heroic feats. [Heaney, Seamus. "Beowulf". USA: Norton, 2000.]

However, although the sword possessed great power and was claimed to have never failed anyone who used it, when Beowulf descended to the bottom of the lake to fight Grendel's mother, the sword proved ineffective. As the "fabulous powers of that heirloom failed," Beowulf was forced to discard it. [Ibid line 1528]

Hrunting's Failure

The reason behind Hrunting's failing against Grendel's Mother has been a point of much scholarly debate. J.L. Rosier, in "A Design for Treachery: The Unferth Intrigue", puts forth the contention that Unferth deliberately gave Beowulf a sword that he knew would fail, possibly for the purpose of preventing Beowulf from succeeding where Unferth himself failed. [Rosier, J. L. "A Design for Treachery: The Unferth Intrigue." "PiMLA", LXXVII (March 1962), 1-7.] Yet this point has been contested by J.D.A Oglivy, who notes that the poem itself offers another explanation. First, Oglivy notes that if Unferth supplied an inferior weapon then it doesn't follow for the poet to have gone into extensive detail about the magical infallibility of the sword. Further, as the sword that Beowulf ultimately finds and slays Grendel's Mother with is noted to be made by giants, [Heaney, Seamus. "Beowulf". USA: Norton, 2000. Lines 1557-1562] it implies that Grendel's line possesses magical invulnerability that prevents weapons made by man from harming them. [Ogilvy, J. D. A. Unferth: Foil to Beowulf? "PMLA", Vol. 79, No. 4. (Sep., 1964), pp. 370-375.]

Another explanation that has been put forth connects Hrunting’s failure to the broader underlying message of Christianity prevalent throughout the poem. Kent Gould, in his essay "“Beowulf” and Folktale Morphology: God as Magical Donor", suggests that Hrunting fails because it was given to Beowulf by Unferth, a heathen. Only the more powerful replacement blade that God gives Beowulf is capable of destroying evil. According to Gould, “the message would be clear enough to the poem's Christian audience: only God can contribute enough power to overcome enemies to whom the poem has elsewhere given a Scriptural history.” [Gould, Kent. “‘Beowulf’ and Folktale Morphology: God as Magical Donor.” "Folklore", Vol. 96, No. 1. (1985), pp. 98-103.] Grendel and Grendel’s mother have such a history, as Grendel’s lineage is described in lines 106-108 to have descended from Cain.

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