Beowulf

The Hero Who Faced Monsters

The poem survives in one manuscript, British Library Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, copied around the year 1000 by two scribes. Its story may have been composed much earlier, but scholars debate the date. A fire in 1731 damaged the manuscript’s edges, and some letters were later lost, making early copies extremely valuable. The poet was Christian, while the characters live in a pre-Christian heroic past. Biblical ideas and older legends appear together. The Danish king Hrothgar builds Heorot, a magnificent hall where his warriors feast and hear music. The noise enrages Grendel, a creature descended from the biblical Cain. Night after night, Grendel attacks and carries away warriors. Beowulf, a young Geatish fighter, hears of the disaster and sails with companions to help, confident that he can face the monster without a weapon.

Grendel enters Heorot and seizes a sleeping man, but Beowulf grips him with enormous strength. The hall shakes as they struggle. Beowulf tears off Grendel’s arm, and the creature escapes to die in the marshes. The Danes celebrate and hang the arm as proof. Yet the victory creates another danger because Grendel’s mother comes to avenge her son. She attacks Heorot and retreats to a lake or mere filled with monsters. Beowulf dives after her wearing armour and carrying the sword Hrunting, lent by Unferth. The blade fails. In her underwater hall, Beowulf spots an enormous sword made by giants and uses it to kill her. Grendel’s corpse lies nearby, and Beowulf cuts off its head. The giant sword melts from the monsters’ poisonous blood, leaving only its decorated hilt.

Beowulf returns home and eventually becomes king of the Geats. He rules for fifty years. Then a runaway enslaved man steals a cup from a dragon’s hoard, waking its fury. The dragon burns homes and threatens the kingdom. Beowulf chooses to fight, knowing this may be his final battle. Most of his warriors flee, but the young kinsman Wiglaf stays. Together they kill the dragon, but its tusks and venom mortally wound Beowulf. He asks to see the treasure he has won for his people and gives Wiglaf his gold collar, helmet and armour. The Geats burn their king on a great funeral pyre and build a mound overlooking the sea.

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