All Things Medieval

A modern story might choose to pass over the in-between time when Beowulf is traveling home, or it might choose to feature an important conversation or detail in the journey. The ancient poet creates a passage that can appear abrupt, disorganized, and slow-moving to a modern reader. Three main objectives appear in this passage: wrapping up unfinished business in Denmark, savoring the sea-voyage, and setting the scene at home.

As morning comes, Beowulf’s mind turns first to packing up and going home. He returns the sword Hrunting to Unferth, with a polite speech making the point that it was not Unferth’s fault that the sword failed. The poet wishes to show some of Beowulf’s character, that he goes out of his way to give honor to a man who tried to dishonor him. With the gear ready to move, Beowulf seeks out his host for a farewell speech, and he may remember as well that he was promised further gifts.

Hrothgar calls the speech of Beowulf the shrewdest speech he has ever heard from a young man, so it is well to look at what Beowulf says. Beowulf’s main point seems to be that of a political ambassador, to strengthen the ties of alliance between the Danes and Geats. Beowulf may be supposed to be not much older than 22, and he has just fought two tremendous battles, so Hrothgar is surprised that he thinks about politics.

Beowulf makes three points. First, he suggests that he would be glad to do more for the Danes, if anything remained to be done, in order to merit more affection. Second, he promises to bring help, in the form of a large army of warriors, if the Danes are threatened by enemies. He appears to realize that he does not truly have the authority to promise this, but he states his confidence that his uncle will back up any promise he makes. Third, he suggests that Hrothgar’s son Hrethric might like to travel to Geatland and strengthen the alliance further. All of his attention is given to strengthening the alliance, and helping their two nations to cooperate.

Hrothgar’s response suggests that most young warriors did not think this way. This may be his moment of greatest regret that he cannot actually adopt Beowulf and keep him here as a successor. Hrothgar, like most old men, knows that the strength of a people is in its alliances as much as in its war band. Most young men undervalue alliances, and are impatient with courting approval, preferring to try their own abilities. Hrothgar may feel that his nephew Hrothulf is not attentive enough to alliances, and that his own sons are still so young that they focus mostly on building their muscles and learning to shoot. The fervency of his good-bye to Beowulf, the tears he weeps as he embraces him for the last time, may signal his wish that he could, indeed, keep Beowulf as his successor.

Hrothgar predicts that if anything carries off Hygelac, either sword or sickness, the Geats will choose Beowulf as their next king. Germanic tribes had a tradition of selecting a king from among the royal family or from a new dynasty if the old one had ended (as in the case of Heremod). Hygelac may not, at this time, have had children, and so Beowulf would be a natural choice, as the nephew. But even after Hygelac’s sons are born, as we will see, the Geats had some choice in the matter to select a grown man over a child. Times were too dangerous not to allow for some flexibility in the matter of kingship.

Hrothgar’s parting gifts for the killing of Grendel’s mother are twelve treasures. We expect to learn more about them, but nothing more is said. Perhaps, with the ship preparing to leave, and the other treasures bundled up to carry, Hrothgar selects smaller treasures such as rings, jeweled brooches, or golden cups. Nothing could be as much carrying trouble as the eight horses already being led down to the sea! The ship is piled high with treasures, although the poet reassures us that the mast still rises high above the heap. For a last exchange of gifts, Beowulf pulls out a gilt sword, perhaps part of his hoard from Hrothgar, and passes it to the coast guard. The coast-guard’s respect in the mead hall, says the poet, rose after that.

As before, the poet loves to describe a sea-voyage. The ship is “ring-necked,” with a “sea-curved prow,” and it “sliced through the deep water” (1896, 1904) Even in a few lines, the poet packs in details: the great sail, the creaking timbers, the straining rigging, the prow wet with waves. The ship pushed forward with the wind, and in short time the cliffs of Geatland are visible. Again they are spotted by a coast guard, and the ship quickly tied up at the beach. The cargo is unloaded quickly, as may be imagined, for it contains not only live horses, but also treasure to tempt any thief.

As Hrothgar holds the sword hilt in his hand, he ponders the history of the blade.  Either in pictures or in runes, the story is told of a great race of mankind that was wiped out by the flood.  He appears to know the story, although a historical Hrothgar could not have read Genesis to know about Noah’s flood.  He ponders the wickedness that led to their downfall, and sees the reversal of fortune for the sword’s owner.  A great earl, he reasons, owned this sword, and then fell either to the monsters descended from Cain, or to the flood itself.  He sees the name of the original owner written in runes, and thinks of this story as though he himself, or a lord of a Germanic tribe, had been the “earl” who owned the sword.  It stirs his thoughts, and he begins to speak one of the longest speeches in the poem. 

This speech is often referred to as “Hrothgar’s Sermon,” because of its formal structure and moralizing tone.  Hrothgar does not quote the Bible at all, but his conclusions are the peculiar blend of Germanic values and Biblical morals that the whole poem presents.  He “preaches” against pride, but it is well to understand that the pride he speaks of is not necessarily pride as we consider it.  In considering his topic, he uses a formal structure of four parts.  First, he considers a particular example of a king who was overthrown in a sudden reversal of fate, then he considers a general case of the psychology behind kingly pride, he then warns Beowulf personally to take heed, and finally uses his own situation as an example for all.

Hrothgar begins with a general proposition that if an earl (or a king) acts in truth on behalf of his people, and does not exhibit the fateful forgetfulness of pride, he is a better man.  It is possible that he is speaking of Beowulf at this point, as he turns immediately to him and tells him to temper his strength and glory with wisdom.  He may be already praising Beowulf for taking care of the people and being born a better man; he may also be thinking of the sword’s original owner, and how it would have been better for that man if he had been virtuous and escaped the wrath of his fate.  In any case, Hrothgar predicts that Beowulf will become the better sort of hero.

Immediate to his mind is an example of a man who did not pass this test.  Scholars believe that Heremod may have been an earlier king of the Danes; in the myth of the infant Scyld arriving by boat, the implication is that the Danes did not have a king when the child arrived.  If there is any historical basis to the stories, perhaps a sudden vacancy in the royal family allowed for a change in dynasty, resulting in the myth of the child who came over the waves.  The story of Heremod seems to fit the slot; he is called the king of the Scyldings, and he seems to have been betrayed or cast out on account of his unfitness to rule.  Perhaps this created the vacancy that the miracle child filled.

It is not easy to fill out the story of Heremod.  In 901-915, the song of the poet as they celebrated the death of Grendel at dawn, Heremod is called headstrong, crippled by cares, a burden.  He was betrayed among the “Eotens,” which is ambiguous in itself.  This word could equally mean the neighboring Jutes, or the giants.  If Heremod was a historical figure, then betrayal among the Jutes, perhaps a generation before the sad story of Hildeburh and Hnaef, would make sense.  If Heremod was a mythical figure, then perhaps he was betrayed in the land of the Norse giants, to the far north.  Most scholars consider the Jutes a more likely option, fitting Heremod into history rather than myth. 

Hrothgar does not give more detailed biographical detail of the downfall of Heremod, but he does fill in the psychological background.  Heremod was greedy, and he betrayed the bonds of the hall-loyalty.  He “cut down his table-companions” (1713).  We can imagine the king and his band of warriors at a feast, and as they grow drunk, the king lashes out and kills someone.  He does it again, and again, each time in different circumstances, but each time showing the same intolerance and impulsiveness.  The first few times, the men were saddened but assumed it would not happen again, but as Heremod begins to make a pattern of it, their loyalty dims and they are afraid of having him in power any longer.  The other fault of Heremod was that he did not give gifts.  This, in the Germanic system, was unpardonable.  All spoils of battle belonged to the king, and from that hoard he doled out rewards.  This reward might be the main income of each warrior, to keep or to sell.  The warriors were dependent on gifts of estates, to support their families.  A king who failed to give gifts was like a nation that stops sending paychecks to its Army.

The mind of Heremod is depicted in colorful terms.  In his heart, he nurses a “blood-ravenous breast-hoard” (1719).  This raises a different picture; perhaps he was not only a man with a hot temper, but began to kill his table companions in order to avoid sharing.  We can imagine him looking over the hoard of spoils, technically his property but, as everyone knew, only his to give away.  He knows that the incredibly intricate helmet taken off the Frankish king should go to Herewulf, the hero who killed the king’s bodyguard, but he wants it for himself.  What better way to keep it than to make sure Herewulf does not recover from his wounds?   A blow on the head in a fit of drunken rage will make sure that Herewulf’s fragile condition worsens and the helmet remains in his hoard.  And so greed and betrayal worked together, and Heremod’s men grew more and more dissatisfied with their king.  The earlier story suggested that the older men, who had known his father, watched with dismay as he failed to live up to his earlier promise, and squandered all of the solid ties of loyalty.  A revolution in the hall may have forced him into exile, and, wandering friendless into the land of the Jutes, he may have met a violent death.  Heremod’s memory continues to serve as a warning to the Danes, how a man born into good circumstances may forget his duties and come to a bad end.

At line 1724, Hrothgar transitions to a general case.  How does this happen?  How is it that a man could be gifted with strength, honor, and success, and throw it all away?  He paints a picture of a man with many advantages over his fellow men, and enjoying every kind of success and freedom from want.  This man, in 1740, at last comes to the turning point, the beginning of downfall.  Pride awakens and his conscience sleeps, and he becomes greedy.  He stops giving gifts.  In the end, he is mortal and he dies, and all his treasure becomes another’s.  Not only can he not “take it with him,” but in the end, another gives it away, as he should have done.

This portion of the message is the closest to a sermon.  The conscience is the soul’s shepherd, and falls asleep.  The tempter comes, either sin or the Devil, and shoots an arrow.  This figure of the evil one who shoots an arrow of sin into the heart is familiar from the Bible, where Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians warns the believers to wear the armor of faith to ward off the flaming darts of the evil one.  It was also familiar in a culture that used bows as daily tools, shooting down birds and rabbits as well as enemy warriors.  Hrothgar’s picture is both from the Bible, and at the same time from his own culture, and believable as something a pagan king might say.  To the audience of Beowulf, it was a word-picture that they might expect to hear on any Sunday in church. 

The sin that the imaginary king falls into is from Germanic values, not from the Bible.  Feeling greedy, he fails to give gold rings to those who boast.  The loyalty of the hall was built around these gifts; the warrior promises to defend the hall or die, and the king gives him a ring as a pledge of this promise.  Failing to give the rings was a way of dishonoring the promise of loyalty, and so greed, in a king, was the worst possible sin.  In the Christian culture of the audience, greed had other meanings.  They knew that God required giving to the poor, but here Hrothgar makes no mention of alms-giving.  They knew that supporting the church through gifts was also required, and this too has no role in the duties of Hrothgar’s imagined king.  He fails in one way only, that is by failing to uphold the bonds of the Germanic war band.

In 1758, Hrothgar brings the point of his message home to Beowulf.  Do not be like the unhappy owner of this sword hilt, nor like Heremod, nor like any other figure of pride and downfall.  While you are young, learn wisdom.  Give gifts and pay attention not to your own riches and glory, but to strengthening the bonds of communal loyalty.  This has been the message of his “sermon,” and yet in the closing, he returns again to Biblical language.  Choosing wisdom, Beowulf can choose “eternal counsel,” a term generally used to mean spiritual wisdom and salvation.  In 1763-8, Hrothgar lists the terrors that may attack Beowulf in his lifetime.  This short passage is compelling in its efficiency and poetry; it achieves rhetorical power by its relentless list, followed by the conclusion:  “in one fell swoop death, o warrior, will overwhelm you.”

Hrothgar’s last point is about his own situation.  It does not fit into this scheme directly, but is rather an example of how evil reversal can come to any king.  He states how he brought peace to the Danes through fifty years of firm rule, and yet in the end, even he suffered from an enemy that he could not placate or defeat.  This seems less of a moral, and more of a transition and compliment.  He has been warning Beowulf not to kill his friends, and not to become piggy and suspicious.  Now, he seems to recall everyone’s minds to the occasion.  He could not rid himself of the monsters, but look! Beowulf has done it!  Let’s all sit down and drink!  His last moral point is that just as he had to wait for God’s hand of freedom from the monsters, so Beowulf and all kings must remember their Creator and avoid sinful pride.

This last feast is told in few words.  The Danes were preparing themselves for a funeral, rather than a victory feast; this sudden reversal of good, the incredible return of Beowulf, has left Hrothgar unprepared.  It is late, and Beowulf is tired.  Hrothgar does not have time for more than an ordinary feast, and there are no gifts laid out.  After Grendel’s death, he had the day to look over his hoard and make selections, but this time, he is apologetic that it will have to wait till morning.  Clearly, Beowulf is too tired to care.  The feast probably wraps up earlier than usual, and all sleep in the hall without fear.  One detail stands out, because it is unusual in a heroic story for any of the mundane parts of life to be recorded.  As Beowulf retires, a servant goes with him to attend to whatever needs he has.  The poem does not tell us what these may be; we can assume that cleaning some of his cuts and poulticing his bruises will be part of it.  Beowulf may want the mere-slime washed out of his hair, as well, and his clothes washed and sewed.  The line is a small reminder that even in heroic days, a bevy of hired men and women took care of these constant needs of all mankind.

As Beowulf emerges from the water, dripping and covered with slime, the focus quickly shifts to the trophy head of Grendel.  Just how large was Grendel?  Although Beowulf was able to swim upwards with the head, it requires four normal men and two long poles to transport the head now.  This is a head the size of a boulder!  The Geats are able to make a most dramatic entrance, unlooked-for, dragging the head into the hall by the hair. 

Beowulf’s short speech summarizing the fight emphasizes the danger he was in, first, and then the finality of this victory.  After his fight with Grendel, his speech to Hrothgar had resembled an instant replay, describing the wrestling, the wound, and the pain he inflicted.  This second speech omits the details of the fight but tells about the swords, which is a point sure to interest everyone in the hall. Also, Beowulf, having been to the lair of the water-trolls, can now assure everyone that there are no more of them lurking about, no younger brothers or sisters.  Heorot can finally rest in peace, at least until the next human assault or raid.

The magical giant’s sword is again the focus of attention.  As Hrothgar examines the hilt, the narrative tells us more about it.  The hilt is decorated with snakey designs and fancy scrolls, but more than that, it has runes cut into it. 

Runes were ancient letters, modeled after the Roman alphabet, but they were also magic symbols.  To cut or carve runes was to cast a spell.  Owning the stick or weapon whereon runes had been cut meant owning the power of that magic. 

In this Christian-era poem, there is little use made of these magic runes (no incantations to the gods, no indication of what sort of spell) but we learn that they tell a story.  Runic writing could tell a story, although it was more often used for simple inscriptions.  The monks favored Latin script, but there are some poems in runic writing.  By Anglo-Saxon times, runes formed a full alphabet. 

The narrative of Beowulf envisions a sword with more than a “Dudda made me” inscription; although the owner’s name is included, the runes (or perhaps pictures) tell the story of the ancient struggle with evil, in the days of Genesis. This is one of the most colorful and successful fusions of old and new religious beliefs in the poem. 

In pagan times, the runes might have told about an ancient struggle between the god Tyr and a Frost Giant, or about the defeat of the gods in the last battle.  Runes were associated with Woden (Norse Odin), and were part of his magic spells. 

But in this Christian epic, the runes are brought into the service of Bible history.  Their magic is part of the magic of writing, as it connects us with the past; the ancient weapon’s writing is a direct testament of the times of pre-history.  Surely the audience of Beowulf felt the same thrill we might feel on seeing prehistoric cave paintings, or the original Declaration of Independence, or even the burnt, cracked manuscript of Beowulf itself. 

Writing connects us to the past by telling the forgotten story, and if we can see the actual writing itself, the connection is so much stronger.  This inscription tells about the ancient struggle with giants, the Christian version, and how “Frea,” the Lord, set out to subdue them.  In the Anglo-Saxon poem “Genesis,” in the passage dealing with the giants, the chosen word for “Lord” is the same word as the name of the pagan Norse god whose sign was the boar.  On the sword-hilt there is almost perfect synthesis of pagan and Christian belief.

The fight follows four quick steps.  First, Beowulf gets his bearings and wrenches free from her grip to take a stab at the mother with Unferth’s sword.  Second, the sword failing, he flings it aside and tries to wrestle as he had grappled with Grendel, but he trips and falls.  Third, Grendel’s mother does not play by the rules but pulls a knife on him, which his chain-mail shirt succeeds in keeping out.  Fourth, Beowulf tries a new approach by taking a sword from the wall and bringing it down on her neck.  This fourth phase ends the fight with her death.

Why did the second sword succeed where Unferth’s sword did not?  The poem provides the answer that the second sword was older and larger.  But the sword is not only older, it is more supernatural, fit to kill a supernatural being.  Moreover, an ancient sword might also be made of bronze, not iron, and if Grendel’s mother is charmed against only iron, then she would suddenly be helpless.  The sword Hrunting apparently bounced off her head, while this one slices right into the bone.  It is a giant’s sword, such as only Beowulf could lift.  These are not the Frost Giants of Norse legend, but the human giants of early Genesis, before the flood.  The sword may have some power of its own, perhaps made to kill Cain’s kin but failing in its first try as its owner perished.  Having waited patiently many centuries on the wall for a hero to come, the sword now fulfills its purpose.  The poem does not tell such a story directly, but in evoking the age of heroes and giants before the Flood, it suggests some sort of magical past.

The magical giant’s sword is able to do one more task before it fails. Beowulf now cuts off the head of Grendel, although Grendel is already dead. If Beowulf had not found Grendel and taken his chance to cut off the head, perhaps Grendel’s undead body would have taken to roaming the land again, causing ruin and death.  Icelandic stories of such zombies, called draugrs, make clear that the remedy is to cut off the head.  As a further reason, many people survive wounds of all sorts, but the loss of a head is sufficient proof of death.  There are parallels in the Bible of such trophy heads, in the stories of Goliath and of John the Baptist.  In the same manuscript binding with Beowulf is the story of Judith, a courageous widow who beheads Holofernes, the Babylonian commander.  Clearly, there is no better death certificate than a severed head.

Two beheadings in the underwater hall create a new upwelling of the supernatural blood.  Like a water jet in a hot tub, the blood bubbles up to the surface.  This sudden rush of blood occasions a mistake, in which the wisdom of man fails.  Hrothgar’s counselors see it and these old men, who know too well the ways of the world, are unanimous that the blood can only be that of Beowulf.  In a world where men meet death, where Fate will bring about sudden reversals of fortune, their “wisdom” is understandable.  Perhaps Hrothgar is growing tired, for the decision is made to abandon the mere and go home.  Only the Geats remain.

The magical natures of both the sword and the blood come together in the vivid image of the sword blade melting.  Like “battle-icicles,” the sword melts “like ice when the Father loosens the frost’s fetters, unwraps the water’s bonds” (1606-10).  The stated reason is the heat of the monsters’ blood, which the metal cannot stand, but clearly there is a supernatural principle at work.  The sword has done its duty and the blade now melts; perhaps the monster’s blood takes a last revenge on the blade that spilled it.  Beowulf would be well within his rights to take other treasures from the hall but, perhaps unnerved by the melting sword, he decides that the weapons and treasures are not to be touched.  With three possessions — Hrunting, the giant sword hilt, and Grendel’s head — he is ready to swim to the surface.

Beowulf’s preparations are shown in detail.  An audience familiar with war and weapons would have been interested in this part.  Did he wear his helmet, which would make swimming difficult?  Yes, he did, and he wore his chain-mail shirt, too.  Although swimming is much harder with heavy metal armor, it was important to Beowulf to wear some protective covering as he sank past the sea-monsters. 

When he fought against Grendel, Beowulf had used no sword, being advised that Grendel was charmed against iron.  In this instance, he accepts the ceremonial presentation of a sword from the shame-faced Unferth.  Unferth’s probable high status at Hrothgar’s court is reinforced by his ownership of this weapon.  If he was not a famous warrior himself, perhaps his father was; the sword is said to be an ancient treasure, never failing its owner.  Now, armed with a sword, in chain-mail and helmet, Beowulf is ready to go.

Beowulf predicts that with the sword Hrunting, he will gain victory or die.  Neither option will prove to be true, and one wonders if he would have bothered to take a sword with him, had not Unferth made a show of giving him this treasure-sword.  Perhaps Beowulf wonders if Grendel’s mother will prove just as impervious to iron as her son; perhaps he is showing optimism so as not to shame an important man who has already suffered a downfall of pride.  On the other hand, perhaps he would rather go into the water with a sword, just in case it works.

There are some surprises to be revealed in this fight with Grendel’s mother.  The first is where Beowulf decides to go to find her:  straight down.  We might expect that she lives in a cave along the side of the mere, but Beowulf knows better, and he knows he must dive straight into the water.

Almost as soon as he has passed downward where the waiting men cannot see him, Grendel’s mother, who is indeed on the bottom, looks up and sees him.  We have all seen underwater footage of sharks or men swimming at a higher, more sun-filled level than the cameraman; the water shines in the sun, and the body is clearly outlined.  The mere must be murkier than the ocean water we see on film, but still it is through the sunlit background that the mother is able to see the intruder long before he sees her. 

In the end, it saves Beowulf time, for rather than searching the mere’s bottom looking for a hidden lair, he is dragged very rapidly into it, perhaps before his breath has run out.  Beowulf’s high-speed trip downward is fearfully dangerous; sea-monsters are clawing at him, tearing at him with tusks.  Only his mail-shirt keeps him bruised but unwounded.

The next surprise comes at the bottom of the mere.  We expect Beowulf to drown, as he would if a shark dragged him under the ocean waves.  Instead, he finds himself in an air-filled underwater cave.  Not only is it an underwater cave, it is more than that: it is a hall.  The hall is not only air-filled, it is a real hall with a central fire.  On the walls hang treasure-weapons, as perhaps there were at the hall of Heorot.  The tables have turned:  Beowulf the avenger is come into the enemy’s hall, as Grendel’s mother came to Heorot.

In her attack, Grendel’s mother follows a different strategy.  Grendel became accustomed to the hall, and in his pride he ate his victims on the spot, as well as taking some away with him.  But the mother has never been seen in Heorot; only her anger and sorrow drove her into the dwellings of men.  She takes no risks; she makes a lightning strike.  With an instantly-killed victim in hand, she takes a life for a life, and leaves as quickly as she can.

The victim this time is a nobleman, one of Hrothgar’s oldest friends, and we learn his name: Aeschere. Pursuit of the monster begins with discovery; the men in the hall see what happened, then they must waken the King, who is in another building.  Beowulf too awakens, and both men arrive around dawn in the hall to find disorder, uproar and fear.  The attack took place before the sun rose, and now it is grey dawn.

In one of the few humorous touches, Beowulf appears not to notice what has happened. Realizing he has been wakened urgently at an earlier hour than he expected, he fails to notice the signs of tragedy, and asks Hrothgar if he had a pleasant night’s rest. 

Where has Grendel’s mother gone? Home, but such a home. Hrothgar gives a vivid description of the mere (a word for a small lake) where the water-trolls live.  Its chief features are threatening landscape, stormy weather, loner animals, and unnatural fire on the water.  It has high cliffs, waterfalls, and a fearful forest; its headlands are windy, and its storms so violent that the waves climb as high as the sky.  We learn that wolves haunt the hills around it, and later (1425 ff) that sea-monsters live in the water.  All this may seem in the order of nature but there is something more.  The fire on the water at night is enough to warn even hunted stags from splashing into the water and swimming to get away from hunters.  Animals are as afraid of the haunted mere as the Danes themselves.

Beowulf’s response to this challenge is at once familiar and strange.  To the sorrowing Hrothgar, he offers platitudes about death, like an early form of a condolence card.  “Each of us shall abide the end of this world’s life,” he says, echoing the narrator’s sentiment that death will catch everyone some day.  Then Beowulf offers a comfort that sounds strange to modern ears.  He promises vengeance, so that Hrothgar may not grieve, and so that he himself may seek glory before his own death.  His statement that “It is always better to avenge one’s friend than to mourn overmuch” (1385) is given in the tone of the obvious, a statement to which he expects no disagreement. 

The idea that vengeance is the best comfort after a murder makes a great deal of sense in a culture of feud, but not in a culture of restitution, such as the later Anglo-Saxons encouraged.  Paying the “wer-gild,” the “man-money,” meant settling the feud without any vengeance.  In a modern culture of social restraint, we find even less to agree with when Beowulf makes this pronouncement.  There are occasions when a murderer is sentenced to death, and the victim’s family appeals to the judge to spare his life.  “His death won’t bring back my son,” they say, “it will only bring about more death.  Two wrongs don’t make a right.”  Not so the Danes!

Beowulf’s trip to the haunted mere is made in full state parade.  With some of the Geats and many of the leading Danes on horseback, the procession follows the footprints of Grendel’s mother.  Beowulf scouts ahead at one point, perhaps impatient with the slow pace of the foot soldiers.  The most startling discovery is the discarded head of Aeschere, perhaps spat out like a seed as the mother passed by.  It is implied that the body of Aeschere went into the water with the murderer, for the water “boiled” with blood. 

There are three places in the poem where this same mere is said to bubble with blood.  There is surely something magical about this detail, as it does not seem realistic.  In the first case, Grendel’s torn arm has had several miles to bleed before he reaches the mere, and yet the mere is said to be welling up with blood when the Danes scout it a few hours later.  In this case, Aeschere too would have not been an endless source of blood after he was carried over the path to the mere.  Water would quickly diffuse the color of blood.  It seems rather a statement of moral value, for blood has always been the symbol of the life taken, and of the crime.  The poem has already cited Cain’s murder of his brother Abel in Genesis 4; in that passage, God tells Cain that Abel’s blood cries out from the ground.  About six hundred years after the Beowulf manuscript was written, Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth feels that the stain of blood is on her hands from the murder.  Blood is the sign of the life as it leaves the body, staining the murderer or the murder site, or in this case, the water of the mere.

            Unable to attack the mother themselves, still the Geats make one small inroad on the haunted mere.  One Geat warrior lets fly an arrow against a sea monster, whose wound allows it to be hooked and brought to shore.  Unfortunately, we get no description of the “wave-roamer,” so we cannot know if we should picture a crocodile, a shark, the Loch Ness monster, or a mythical creature combining the body of a whale, the teeth of a lion, and the tusks of an elephant. Any of these would be possible.

While Grendel’s feud seemed well enough explained as just being part of his monstrous nature, the episode with Grendel’s mother always demands more explanation and raises more questions. It is portrayed less as an outcome of monstrosity and more in the terms of a feud. The mother is an “avenger” (1256), who remembers “her misery” (1258), and must take a “sorrowful journey” to “avenge her son’s death” (1278). These words might describe a less passive Hildeburh, a Hildeburh who decided not to weep at Finnsburg but instead to go to Hengest herself and ask for him to avenge her son against the other Jutes.

Germanic heroines of legend give us examples of the role of women in vengeance. In the story of the Volsungs, Signy puts avenging the death of her father and brothers above her own children, and eggs on her surviving brother to complete the vengeance. A generation later, Gudrun forces her sons to swear to kill her daughter’s murderer. In two tales from Iceland, another Gudrun goads her husband to kill a man who slighted her, and a mother scolds her son Bardi for not avenging his brother’s death. Women frequently vented their grief by demanding vengeance, even when the men considered that it was better to maintain a truce. Is Grendel’s mother justified in taking vengeance herself, when she has no one to send?

On the other side, the monsters are already outlaws. They may operate in the spirit of revenge, but they are not taking legal vengeance. A victim’s family could demand a life for a life, although by Christian times, the payment of blood-money was legally preferred. But Grendel had already demonstrated that he himself never played by these rules; he took life after life, and made no recompense.

The rules of the blood feud recognized that all the players were of equal moral stature, and that every man should be held accountable for his actions. Grendel was only partly human and refused to be held accountable, dying the undignified death of a wounded animal. Is it legally permissible for his mother to demand payment for his death?

To the audience of Beowulf, the two possibilities were probably both present. On the one hand, Grendel’s mother is grieving and has just come from the scene of her son’s death. The poem comments that there was no good exchange that “both sides” had to bargain with “the lives of friends” (1305-6). This seems to make a moral equation between the losses.

On the other hand, Grendel and his mother are outlaws, monsters, cursed by God, and half-bestial. The heart can allow that she would desire revenge, but the law cannot. Grendel’s death was just punishment, and no one allowed that the family of a man hung for murder or theft was due vengeance against the king. Grendel’s mother has merely continued the feud in the lowest sense—kill and kill alike—and it will only be settled with her own death, unless more relatives come forward.

The second feast closes shortly after Wealhtheow’s speech. Men continue to drink for some time, but the hall is converted into a sleeping-room once again. This was the general custom, but in the opening lines we had learned that warriors were becoming afraid to sleep at Heorot. Now, with relief, they flock back into the hall and set out their bedding.
There are two notable exceptions. Hrothgar does not sleep in the hall; perhaps because he is old, now he goes to his own house. This may be a smaller building nearby. Beowulf, too, is given “guest of honor” chambers in a separate building, along with his men.
Through line 1250, there is every reason to suppose that the story is over, except for one ominous line. “Wyrd,” the Old English word for Fate, enters the room in 1233. There is something unpleasant looming in the near future, bringing a “cruel fate” to many an earl, and waiting only “once evening came, and Hrothgar departed to his own dwelling” (1234-6) What is out there in the dark?

Of course, the new monster is Grendel’s mother. And here’s where modern adaptations get really snarled.

As Grendel had little physical description, it is the same with his mother.  The narrative of the poem assumes that we know what she looked like, or, conversely, that it doesn’t really matter.  She is called three words as soon as she is introduced.  She is “modor,” mother, “ides,” lady, and “aglæca-wif,” as Grendel had been “aglæca.”  The three concepts seem hard to integrate, at first.  We know she is the mother of Grendel, although Hrothgar says there was no father, and the narrative says that both sprang from Cain.  The term “lady” as applied to this slime-covered fen monster seems startling; the word “ides” has only been used to describe the royal (human) women up to now.  That the she-monster is a “terrible female,” the approximate meaning of “aglæca-wif,” seems less difficult.  The three together are hard to see as a unity.  Is Grendel’s mother a bestial female, like a she-bear robbed of her cub, or is she a regal figure demanding justice for her feud? 

Modern movie adaptations believe firmly that she’s a mostly-human figure demanding justice for the murder of her son. As with Grendel, the modern mind can’t accept that something is just plain evil, because so often during the 20th century, that charge was leveled at human beings. I think most people still agree that Adolf Hitler was evil, but after all, he tried to persuade the world that the Jews were evil. We rightly balk at the idea that an entire group of human beings could be “evil.” We know that humans operate from mixed motives and it’s a tiny minority that commit harm just because they want to.

When movies present Grendel, they show him as having an understandable motive. In the poem, he just sees and hears the hall full of innocent joy and is filled with hatred. But in movies, he was previously wronged by someone in Hrothgar’s band, perhaps the king himself. Without that prior offense, he would not be attacking.

In the case of Grendel’s mother, part of that is true even in the poem, because as long as Grendel was free to kill and eat humans, she left them alone. She only shows up because now he is dead. Would the mother of an organized crime boss order hits to take revenge for his death? Perhaps so. We can understand this, even if we feel that in both cases, revenge isn’t appropriate because they were killers. Killing a killer saves lives, and saving lives is our highest good.

Whatever Grendel’s mother was like, she certainly could never have been played by a beautiful actress like Angelina Jolie.