Who Was Grendel in Beowulf?
Meet the monster Grendel, his attacks on Heorot Hall, his battle with Beowulf, and his place in the Old English epic poem.
Grendel is the monster who terrorizes the Danish hall of Heorot in the Old English poem Beowulf, and who is killed by the hero Beowulf in a famous wrestling match. According to the poem, Grendel is a descendant of the biblical Cain, exiled from God’s grace and condemned to live in the marshes and the moors. He is described as a fearsome being, half-human and half-monster, who comes to Heorot at night to devour the sleeping warriors. The image of Grendel as a Cain-descended monster is one of the most famous in Old English poetry, and the killing of Grendel is the central event of the first half of the Beowulf poem.
The Poem and Its Setting
The poem Beowulf is the longest surviving Old English poem, with 3,182 lines preserved in a single manuscript, the Cotton Vitellius A.xv, dating from c. 1000 but thought to have been composed in the 8th or early 9th century. The poem is set in Scandinavia, in the lands of the Danes, the Geats, and the Swedes, and it draws on the heroic traditions of the continental Germanic peoples.
The story opens with the Danish king Hrothgar, who has built a great hall called Heorot. Hrothgar’s hall is a place of feasting and celebration, but the building of the hall is the cause of Grendel’s rage: the monster has been angered by the sound of the warriors’ merriment, and he comes to the hall at night to devour the sleeping warriors. For twelve years, Grendel terrorizes the hall, killing the warriors of Hrothgar one by one.
The figure of Grendel is one of the most famous in Old English poetry, and the killing of Grendel is one of the most famous heroic acts. The image of a hero, fighting a monster with his bare hands, is one of the most powerful in the entire medieval Germanic tradition.
The Lineage of Grendel
The lineage of Grendel is described in the poem (lines 102–114 and elsewhere). According to the poet, Grendel is one of the Caines cynne — the kin of Cain. The biblical figure of Cain, who killed his brother Abel and was condemned by God to be a wanderer on the earth, is identified in the Old English poem as the original ancestor of monsters, giants, and evil beings. Grendel is, in this sense, a descendant of the first murderer, a being who has been exiled from God’s grace and condemned to live in the marshes and the moors.
The image of Grendel as a descendant of Cain is one of the most important in the poem, and it has been the subject of modern interpretation. The poet’s reading of Grendel is Christian: the monster is a being of evil, descended from the original sinner, and the killing of Grendel is, in a sense, the work of a Christian hero. The reading has been treated in scholarship since the 19th century, and it has shaped the way the poem is read in the English-speaking world.
The poem also describes Grendel as living in the marshes, in the moors, in the fenlands. The picture is of a being who has been exiled from the human world and who lives in the wild, in the liminal places where the world is not quite human. The wild, in this sense, is the place of the monster, the place where the human order breaks down. The reading matches with the medieval Christian imagination of the wilderness as a place of sin and exile.
The Attacks on Heorot
The attacks of Grendel on the hall of Hrothgar are described in detail in the poem (lines 115 ff. and elsewhere). According to the poet, the monster comes to the hall at night, when the warriors are sleeping. He breaks into the hall by force, and he kills and devours the sleeping warriors. He takes the bodies with him, and he returns to the marshes. The hall, which had been a place of feasting and celebration, becomes a place of terror and grief.
The attacks continue for twelve years. Hrothgar is unable to defend his hall, and his warriors desert the hall one by one. The picture is of a king who has been humbled by a monster, and a hall that has been turned from a place of joy to a place of death.
The twelve-year reign of Grendel is a key element in the poem. The number twelve is, in the Old English imagination, a marker of long time — twelve is the number of years in a cycle, the number of months in a year. The picture is of a long, painful time in which the human order has been overturned.
Beowulf’s Arrival
The hero Beowulf, a young prince of the Geats (a people in what is now southern Sweden), hears of the trouble in Denmark and decides to travel to Hrothgar’s hall to help. He takes a small band of warriors with him, and they arrive at the Danish coast, where they are challenged by a coastguard. Beowulf explains his mission, the coastguard accepts, and the party is led to Heorot.
The arrival of Beowulf is described in detail in the poem, and it is one of the great set-pieces of Old English poetry. Beowulf is described as a great warrior, a strong man, and the kind of hero who can defeat a monster. The picture is of a young hero, in the prime of his life, who has come to do a heroic deed.
The arrival is also a moment of contrast: the hall, which had been a place of feasting, is now a place of fear; the warriors, who had been joyful, are now anxious; the king, who had been mighty, is now humbled. In this world the heroic age has been broken, and a new hero is needed to restore it.
The Wrestling Match
The killing of Grendel is described in lines 710 ff. of the poem. According to the poet, Beowulf decides to fight the monster with his bare hands, refusing to use weapons, since Grendel does not use weapons. He waits for the monster in the hall, lying down in one of the warriors’ beds, and the monster arrives at night, expecting to find the sleeping warriors as usual.
Grendel is surprised by Beowulf’s presence. The hero seizes the monster by the arm, and the two of them begin to wrestle. The hall is shaken by the struggle, the benches are broken, the warriors wake, and the hall becomes a place of fighting and terror. Beowulf, however, has the strength of thirty men, and he eventually rips Grendel’s arm from the monster’s body. Grendel, mortally wounded, flees to the marshes and dies.
The wrestling match is one of the most famous scenes in Old English poetry. The image of a hero, fighting a monster with his bare hands, is one of the most powerful in the medieval Germanic tradition. The two beings, locked in a struggle, shake the hall, and the human world breaks down around them. In this world the heroic act is a kind of cosmic restoration: the hero defeats the monster, and the human order is restored.
The arm of Grendel, which Beowulf has torn from the monster’s body, is hung from the rafters of Heorot as a trophy. The picture is of a hall that has been restored, a hall that has been cleansed of the monster, and a hall that is once again a place of feasting and celebration.
The Significance of the Bare-Handed Fight
Beowulf’s decision to fight Grendel without weapons is a key element in the poem. The hero chooses to fight the monster on its own terms, refusing the advantage of weapons. The decision is, in the surviving sources, a statement of heroic value: the hero is willing to meet the monster on equal terms, and the hero is willing to face the monster’s strength with his own.
The decision is also a statement of Christian value. The poet is a Christian, and the killing of Grendel is, in part, an image of the Christian fight against evil. The hero’s decision to fight the monster with his bare hands is, in this sense, a statement of the Christian’s willingness to face evil directly, without the help of any but God.
The 20th-century scholar J. R. R. Tolkien, in his essay Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, argued that the killing of Grendel is the central event of the first half of the poem, and that the killing is a statement of the value of heroism in a Christian world. The reading has been treated in modern scholarship, and it has shaped the way the poem is read in the English-speaking world.
The Mother of Grendel
After the killing of Grendel, the poem describes a second monster: the mother of Grendel, who comes to Heorot in revenge for the death of her son. The mother is described as a being of the marshes, like her son, and she takes one of Hrothgar’s closest advisors. Beowulf is asked to fight her, and he goes to the monster’s lair in the marshes.
The fight with the mother of Grendel is described in lines 1500 ff. of the poem. The hero enters the monster’s lair, and there he finds the mother. The two fight, and the hero is initially overmatched. The hero finds a great sword in the monster’s lair — a sword forged by the giants of the past — and with it he kills the mother. He then finds the body of Grendel, and he cuts off the head as a trophy.
The mother of Grendel is, in the surviving sources, a complex figure. She is, in part, a being of revenge, a mother who has lost her son. She is, in part, a being of the marshes, a wild creature of the fenlands. She is, in part, a symbol of the female principle, a being who is associated with the earth and the wild.
The image of the mother is, in the surviving sources, a statement of the heroic ideal. The hero, having killed the son, must now kill the mother, and the two killings are part of the same heroic act. The hero’s career is, in this sense, a career of confrontation with the wild, with the mother and the son, with the two beings of the marshes.
The Hall Restored
After the killing of the mother, the hero returns to Heorot, and the hall is restored. The poem describes the return in lines 1880 ff. Beowulf is honored by Hrothgar, who gives him great gifts, and the hero returns to the Geats with his band of warriors.
The image of the hall restored is one of the most famous in the poem. The hall, which had been a place of terror, is now a place of feasting and celebration. The hero has defeated the monsters, and the human order is restored. In this world the heroic act has been accomplished, and the hero can return home.
The Meaning of Grendel in the Poem
The figure of Grendel is, in the surviving sources, a complex one. He is, in part, a monster — a being of evil, descended from Cain, exiled from the human world. He is, in part, an outsider — a being who is not quite human, who lives in the liminal places. He is, in part, a symbol — a being who represents the wild, the chaotic, the forces that threaten the human order.
The reading has been treated in modern scholarship since the 19th century. The 20th-century scholar Fred Robinson argued that Grendel is, in part, a symbol of the human enemies of the Anglo-Saxons — the Vikings, the Danes, the heathens. The reading matches with the poem’s historical context, and it has been the subject of modern interpretation.
The most common reading, by scholars such as Klaeber and Tolkien, emphasizes the heroic and the Christian: Grendel is a monster, Beowulf is a hero, and the killing is a statement of the value of heroism in a Christian world. The reading has been the dominant one in English-language scholarship, and it has shaped the way the poem is read.
Grendel in the Scandinavian Sources
The figure of Grendel is preserved in the Old English poem Beowulf only, but the figure has clear parallels in the Scandinavian tradition. The most striking parallel is with the Norse figure of the troll, a being of the wild, of the mountains, of the marshes, who is the enemy of the human order. The troll is, in the surviving sources, a complex figure, sometimes evil, sometimes comical, sometimes tragic. The parallel with Grendel is not direct, but the two are part of a larger Germanic tradition of monstrous beings who are the enemies of the human order.
The figure of Grendel has also been compared with the Norse draugr — the undead warrior who haunts a burial mound and who terrorizes the living. The figure of the draugr is preserved in many of the medieval Icelandic sagas, and the parallels with Grendel are striking. The reading has been treated in modern scholarship, and it has been used to argue that the Beowulf poem is, in part, a product of a shared Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon tradition of monstrous beings.
Grendel in Modern Culture
The figure of Grendel has had a major impact on modern popular culture. The 1971 novel Grendel by John Gardner tells the story from the monster’s point of view, in which Grendel is a thinking, feeling being who is in conflict with the human order. The 2007 film Beowulf depicts Grendel as a fearsome monster, and the figure has inspired many modern adaptations.
The figure has also been a focus of modern fantasy. The image of a hero, fighting a monster with his bare hands, is one of the most common in modern fantasy fiction, and the figure of Grendel is one of the principal sources. The image of the monster, exiled from the human world, living in the marshes, terrorizing the hall, is one of the most powerful in the modern fantasy tradition.
The figure of Grendel is, in this sense, one of the most important in Old English poetry, and it continues to be a focus of modern adaptation, scholarship, and imaginative engagement. The image of the monster, the hero, and the hall is one of the most famous in the medieval Germanic tradition, and it has been widely studied for more than a century.