Beowulf and Grendel

Part One · The Hall

On the northern shore of the Danish kingdom there stood a magnificent hall called Heorot, the most celebrated building ever constructed in that country, whose towering gabled roof glittered with gold and whose enormous beams were carved with the legendary achievements of ancestors. Every evening King Hrothgar assembled his warriors beneath it so that they might celebrate their victories, listen to the poets, and receive generous gifts of treasure, and the music traveled across the cultivated fields and into the desolate marshes beyond. There, in complete isolation, lived a creature named Grendel, who had never been invited to a single party in his life. He despised every cheerful sound that the hall produced, from the harps to the hiccups, and he felt each outburst of laughter like a pebble thrown at his window. For twelve years the singing went on, night after night, and for twelve years something in the marsh lay awake and listened.

One evening, after the celebration had ended and the exhausted warriors lay snoring along their benches, Grendel emerged from the mist and approached the building with enormous, deliberate strides. The heavy doors, though reinforced with iron, burst open at his touch, and by morning thirty men had vanished from the hall. It was only the beginning of a long catastrophe. Night after night the monster returned, until the magnificent building stood completely deserted, its golden roof dim and its benches cold, and everyone in the kingdom learned to bolt their shutters at dusk and to stop humming. The proud king, who had once been the most admired ruler in the northern world, sat helplessly upon his throne, offering sacrifices, appointing guards, and promising extraordinary rewards, yet nothing succeeded. For twelve miserable winters the Danes endured the darkness in terror, while reports of their misfortune gradually spread across the sea.

Part Two · The Hero Comes

Far away, in the land of the Geats, a young warrior named Beowulf heard these reports and immediately resolved to help. He was the nephew of the Geatish king, and people throughout the country claimed that the strength of thirty men was concentrated in his hands, which made buying shoes for him an expensive business. After selecting fourteen of his most dependable companions and preparing a sturdy ship, he sailed across the stormy gray water toward the Danish coast. A watchman stationed on the cliff, suspicious of foreigners carrying weapons, galloped down and demanded an explanation. Beowulf answered with such courtesy and confidence that the astonished guard personally escorted the entire company along a paved road. Eventually the glittering roof of Heorot appeared above the trees, still magnificent in the afternoon sunlight, though no voices were singing beneath it and no smoke was rising from its chimneys.

King Hrothgar greeted the strangers with a peculiar mixture of hope and exhaustion, because he remembered Beowulf's father as a faithful friend. He listened attentively while the young hero explained his proposal. Beowulf announced that he would confront Grendel entirely alone, and, since the monster carried no weapons, he would refuse to carry any himself, relying only on his own strength. If he were defeated, he added calmly, there would be no need to arrange a funeral, because the creature would carry away whatever remained. A sour Danish courtier named Unferth muttered that heroes were cheap in the daytime, and Beowulf smiled and replied that he would be happy to discuss it after breakfast. That evening the Danes held a banquet in the abandoned hall for the first time in years. A few of them even laughed, although the sound was uncomfortable, and every guest kept glancing nervously toward the darkening windows.

Part Three · The Grapple

As the daylight faded, the Danes retreated gratefully to their own homes and left the Geats in complete charge of the hall. Beowulf's companions lay down on the benches with their swords beside them, though most were far too anxious to sleep, while Beowulf carefully removed his armor, set it aside, and settled near the entrance to wait. The fire sank slowly into embers. Outside, a thick fog crept across the moor, and somewhere in the marsh a branch cracked like a breaking bone. Then came the footsteps, slow and heavy, each one making the cups tremble on the tables. The great doors flew open, and Grendel stepped inside with a terrible light shining in his eyes, delighted to discover so many sleeping strangers. He stretched out a hand toward the nearest warrior. He never suspected that one of them was awake, until a powerful grip closed around his wrist.

For twelve years Grendel had frightened people who were completely unable to resist him, and he could not comprehend what had happened. He twisted, howled, and struggled desperately to escape, but Beowulf refused to let go, and together the two of them crashed across the hall, splintering benches and shaking the pillars until the entire building seemed ready to collapse. The Geats sprang up and attacked the monster with their swords, only to discover that no ordinary blade could penetrate his enchanted skin, while Beowulf, who needed no assistance, held on with increasing determination. The creature shrieked, because for the first time in his miserable life he wanted nothing in the world except to go home, and with a tremendous wrench he tore himself loose and bolted for the door. He left his whole arm behind in the hero's hands, the way a lizard leaves behind a tail.

Part Four · The Mother

Wailing, the wounded creature staggered across the moor and vanished into the black water of his lair, where he would never again be seen alive. At dawn the astonished Danes gathered outside the hall, followed the long trail of enormous footprints, and then gazed upward at the monstrous arm that Beowulf had fastened to the rafters like a trophy. A thunderous cheer rose into the morning air. Messengers hurried along the shore, poets began composing songs about the stranger from across the sea, and Hrothgar embraced his guest and presented him with a golden banner, a magnificent helmet, and a priceless sword. That night the entire kingdom celebrated in Heorot, and the hall rang with music again, louder than it had ever been. Nobody remembered that a monster may have a mother, or that she had been listening as well.

While the exhausted warriors slept soundly, a different visitor crept silently out of the marsh. Grendel's mother was neither clumsy nor foolish, and she possessed a patient, quiet determination that her son had never had, because what she desired was revenge. She slipped into the hall, seized one of the king's oldest and most beloved advisers, and disappeared into the darkness before anyone could raise an alarm. By morning the arm on the rafters was gone as well. The following day, Hrothgar's sorrow was more terrible than anything he had experienced during all the years of the attacks. He told Beowulf that the creature had retreated to the mere, a haunted lake several miles from the hall, where overhanging trees darkened the surface and a cold, unnatural light glowed beneath the waves. Even a stag pursued by hounds, he said, would rather stand shivering upon the bank than plunge into that water.

Part Five · Beneath the Lake

Beowulf put on his armor, accepted the sword that Unferth, looking rather ashamed of himself, had generously lent him, and rode out immediately with a company of men. They followed a narrow path through the dim forest, and the birds fell silent as they went. When they reached the cliff above the mere, they found the water perfectly black and motionless, with strange serpents drifting just beneath the surface, and nobody could speak. Beowulf turned to his loyal friend Wiglaf, asked him to protect the Geats if he failed to return, and then, without waiting for any answer, leapt from the edge. He sank for what seemed like half a day, deeper and deeper through the freezing darkness, with the shapes of the serpents sliding past his shoulders, until his feet finally touched the bottom. A pair of enormous, clawed hands seized him and dragged him toward a cavern concealed beneath the lake.

The cavern was dry, and a pale, unearthly fire illuminated its glistening walls. Beowulf swung the borrowed sword at Grendel's mother with all his strength, and the blade rang against her skin and bounced away, as useless as a wooden spoon. She threw him to the floor. For a long, terrible moment the hero lay helpless, protected only by his armor from the dagger in her fist, and he heard his own heartbeat louder than the water dripping from the roof. Then he noticed an ancient sword hanging on the wall, an immense weapon that giants had forged in some forgotten age, so heavy that no ordinary man could possibly have lifted it. Beowulf scrambled to his feet, grasped the hilt with both hands, and swung with desperate force. This time the blade did its work, and the creature who had haunted Heorot for so long finally fell silent.

Part Six · The Journey Home

Beowulf searched the cavern and discovered Grendel lying lifeless in the corner, and as he raised the giant sword to examine it, the blade began to melt like ice, until only the golden hilt remained in his hand. The air down there was colder than any air should be, and it made him shiver. He carried the hilt upward through the dark water, past the serpents, which did not stir. On the cliff above, the Danes had abandoned hope and returned to their hall, but Wiglaf and the faithful Geats had stayed behind, staring at the surface hour after hour. When the water suddenly cleared and the hero rose into the sunlight, they shouted so loudly that the startled birds scattered from the trees. Beowulf walked back across the moor with his companions, who proudly carried the golden hilt between them as though it were a sacred treasure.

Inside Heorot, King Hrothgar took the golden hilt and studied the elaborate carvings on its surface, which described giants, floods, and the long, quarrelsome history of the world. Then he delivered a solemn speech. He thanked Beowulf for his extraordinary courage. He also warned him, very gently, that physical strength inevitably fades and that even the mightiest warrior grows old. Beowulf listened with profound respect, and he remembered the words for the rest of his life. The next morning he said farewell to the weeping Danes, loaded his ship with the treasures they had given him, and sailed toward home across a perfectly calm sea. The gold roof of Heorot glittered behind him until it disappeared into the distant mist, still bright, no longer afraid of the night, and entirely ready for the music to begin again.

When the Geats reached their own shore, the whole population ran down to the harbor to greet them, shouting and waving with enormous excitement. Beowulf described everything to the king and queen, from the long night in the hall to the cold fire beneath the lake. He presented them with the splendid gifts that the Danes had given him, and the king was so delighted that he rewarded Beowulf with a sword, a hall of his own, and a considerable portion of the kingdom. In the following years the hero became a wise and generous ruler, remembered long after his name had been sung in a thousand halls. Poets still describe the night when a stranger defeated a monster with his bare hands, and they say that whenever the wind blows across the marsh, you can hear the faint echo of that brave, ancient music, and, very faintly, somebody humming along.