Grendel

For other uses, see Grendel (disambiguation).

An illustration of Grendel by J.R. Skelton from Stories of Beowulf. Grendel is described as "Very terrible to look upon."

Grendel is one of three antagonists, along with Grendel's mother and the dragon, in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf (AD 700–1000). Grendel is usually depicted as a monster, though this is the subject of scholarly debate. In the poem, Grendel is feared by all but Beowulf.

Story

Main article: Beowulf

The poem Beowulf is contained in the Nowell Codex. As noted in lines 105–114 and lines 1260–1267 of Beowulf, Grendel and his mother are described as descendants of the Biblical Cain. Beowulf leaves Geatland in order to find and destroy Grendel, who has been attacking the mead hall Heorot, killing and eating anyone he finds there. Grendel attacks the hall after having been disturbed by the noise of the drunken revelers. One cryptic scene in which Grendel sits in the abandoned hall unable to approach the throne hints that his motives may be greed or revenge. After a long battle, Beowulf mortally wounds Grendel by ripping his arm off. Grendel dies in his cave under the swamp. Beowulf later engages in a fierce battle with Grendel's mother, over whom he triumphs. Following her death, Beowulf finds Grendel's corpse and removes the head, which he keeps as a trophy. Beowulf then returns to the surface and to his men at the "ninth hour" (l. 1600, "nōn", about 3pm).^[1] He returns to Heorot, where he is given many gifts by an even more grateful Hroðgar.

Scholarship

Tolkien

In 1936, J.R.R. Tolkien's Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics discussed Grendel and the dragon in Beowulf. This essay was the first work of scholarship in which Anglo-Saxon literature was seriously examined for its literary merits—not just scholarship about the origins of the English language as was popular in the 19th century.

Debate over description

During the following decades, the exact description of Grendel became a source of debate for scholars. Indeed, because his exact appearance is never directly described in Old English by the original Beowulf poet, part of the debate revolves around what is known, namely his descent from the biblical Cain (who was the first murderer in the Bible).

Debate over Grendel's nature

Some scholars have linked Grendel's descent from Cain to the monsters and giants of The Cain Tradition.^[2]

Seamus Heaney, in his translation of Beowulf, writes in lines 1351–1355 that Grendel is vaguely human in shape, though much larger:

... the other, warped

in the shape of a man, moves beyond the pale

bigger than any man, an unnatural birth

called Grendel by the country people

in former days.^[3]

Heaney's translation of lines 1637–1639 also notes that his disembodied head is so large that it takes four men to transport it. Furthermore, in lines 983–89, when Grendel's torn arm is inspected, Heaney describes it as being covered in impenetrable scales and horny growths:

Every nail, claw-scale and spur, every spike

and welt on the hand of that heathen brute

was like barbed steel. Everybody said

there was no honed iron hard enough

to pierce him through, no time proofed blade

that could cut his brutal blood caked claw^[4]

Peter Dickinson (1979) argued that seeing as the considered distinction between man and beast at the time the poem was written was simply man's bipedalism, the given description of Grendel being man-like does not necessarily imply that Grendel is meant to be humanoid, going as far as stating that Grendel could easily have been a bipedal dragon.^[5]

Other scholars such as Kuhn (1979) have questioned a monstrous description, stating:

There are five disputed instances of āglǣca [three of which are in Beowulf] 649, 1269, 1512...In the first...the referent can be either Beowulf or Grendel. If the poet and his audience felt the word to have two meanings, 'monster,' and 'hero,' the ambiguity would be troublesome; but if by āglǣca they understood a 'fighter,' the ambiguity would be of little consequence, for battle was destined for both Beowulf and Grendel and both were fierce fighters (216–7).

O'Keefe has suggested that Grendel resembles a Berserker, because of numerous associations that seem to point to this possibility.^[6]

Grendelsmere

In Worcestershire there was a pond called Grendelsmere near Abbots Morton during the Old English era. The name is likely to be an allusion to Grendel from Beowulf. The pond is now extinct.^[7]

Grendel in film, literature, and popular culture

Main article: List of artistic depictions of Grendel

Notes

1. ^ Jack, George. Beowulf: A Student Edition. p. 123. 
2. ^ Williams, David (1982). Cain and Beowulf: A Study in Secular Allegory. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 
3. ^ Heaney, Seamus. Beowulf lines 1351–1355.
4. ^ Heaney, Seamus. Beowulf lines 983–989.
5. ^ Dickinson, Peter. The Flight of Dragons ch.10 "Beowulf". New English Library, 1979.
6. ^ Berserker
7. ^ Hooke, Della. Worcestershire Anglo-Saxon Charter Bounds, 1990, Boydell & Brewer, Worcestershire (England), ISBN 0851152767.

References

• Jack, George. Beowulf : A Student Edition. Oxford University Press: New York, 1997.
• Klaeber, Frederick, ed. Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg. Third ed. Boston: Heath, 1950.
• Kuhn, Sherman M. "Old English Aglaeca-Middle Irish Olach". Linguistic Method : Essays in Honor of Herbert Penzl. Eds. Irmengard Rauch and Gerald F. Carr. The Hague, New York: Mouton Publishers, 1979. 213–30.
• Tolkien, J.R.R. Beowulf, the Monsters and the Critics. (Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture, British Academy, 1936). First ed. London: Humphrey Milford, 1937.
• Cawson, Frank. "The Monsters in the Mind: The Face of Evil in Myth, Literature, and Contemporary Life". Sussex, England: Book Guild, 1995: 38-39.
• Gardner, John. "Grendel". New York, 1971.