Grendel

For other uses, see Grendel (disambiguation).

Grendel is one of three antagonists, along with Grendel's mother and the dragon, in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf (bce. 700–1000). In the poem, Grendel is feared by all but Beowulf. Grendel is referred to as a march-stepper, literally meaning a "boundary-land walker," a walker in outlands or desolate places. Grendel is often described as a monster.

Story

Main article: Beowulf § Story

The poem Beowulf is contained in the Nowell Codex. As noted in lines 106-114 and lines 1260-1267 of Beowulf, Grendel's mother and Grendel are described as descendants of the Biblical Cain. Beowulf leaves Geatland in order to find and destroy Grendel, who has been attacking Heorot. Barring his lineage, all motives for his attacks are left up to the reader. 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, keeping it as a trophy. Beowulf then returns to the surface and to his men at the "ninth hour" (l. 1600, "nōn", about 3pm). He returns to Heorot, where he is given many gifts by an even more grateful Hroðgar.

In 1971, author John Gardner published the novel Grendel, a retelling of Beowulf from the monster's point of view.

Description

No precise physical description of Grendel is ever given in the poem, other than that he 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.

More clues to his size are given in lines 1637-1639, where it is written that his disembodied head is so large that it takes four men to transport it. Line 1647 indicates that Grendel had hair. On his first raid of Heorot, Grendel's great strength is emphasised by his managing to kill and carry off 30 men.

When Grendel's torn arm is closely inspected, it is shown to be covered in what seem like 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

A later description implies that the arm was in fact some form of glove containing a peculiar machinery.

It was a great gauntlet

Huge and hideous and belted with bindings,

A glove-thing geared in a mysterious manner

With devilish skills and the skins of dragons.

He, together with his mother, inhabits an underwater cave beneath a bloodshot lake infested with "..writhing sea dragons...serpents and wild things such as those that often surface at dawn to roam the sail road and doom the voyage.". Grendel's blood is corrosive to metal, as shown by Hrunting's destruction after Beowulf uses it to behead him..

Scholarship on Grendel

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.

In the following decades, the nature of Grendel's identity would become a conundrum for scholars due in large part to a line where he is described as descended from the Biblical Cain, the first murderer. For some scholars, this justifies a monstrous appearance. For others, it positions Grendel as a marginal (rather than monstrous) figure which bears the curse and mark of Cain.

Kuhn (1979) was the first to raise questions about and the association of any of the above images with Grendel and in an essay which would launch fierce (and as of yet unresolved) debates for decades about the term āglǣca:

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).

Other scholars, such as O'Keefe, identify Grendel with a Berserker, because of numerous associations that seem to point to this possibility.

John Grigsby, in his Beowulf and Grendel :The Truth behind England's oldest legend' suggested that Grendel is a demonized version of the old Norse fertility god Freyr, and even goes as far as linking Grendel with the Green Knight of Arthurian legend.

Grendel in film, literature, and popular culture

Main article: List of artistic depictions of Grendel

Grendel has been adapted in a number of different mediums (film, literature, and graphic/illustrated novels or comic books) including the 2007 Robert Zemeckis film, Beowulf. He was also voiced by Peter Ustinov in the 1983 Australian animated film, Grendel Grendel Grendel, based on the John Gardner novel. In 2006, Elliot Goldenthal and Julie Taymor premiered an opera of Grendel, also based on Gardner's novel.

References

• Jack, George. Beowulf : A Student Edition. Oxford University Press: New York, 1997.
• Frederick Klaeber, 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.
• J.R.R. Tolkien, Beowulf, the Monsters and the Critics. (Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture, British Academy, 1936). First ed. London: Humphrey Milford, 1937.

External links

• Arby Stones, "Hellhounds, Werewolves and the Germanic Underworld"
• "Monsters of Beowulf"
• Grendel ISBN 0679723110