A blessed light unexplainably illuminates the cavern, disclosing Grendel's corpse and a great deal of treasure. Suddenly Beowulf spots a magical, giant sword and uses it to cut through the mother's spine at the neck, killing her. The mother moves to kill Beowulf with her knife, but his armor, made by the legendary blacksmith Weland, protects him.
Beowulf fights back once inside the dry cavern, but the gift sword, Hrunting, strong as it is, fails to penetrate the ogre's hide. Near the bottom of the lake, Grendel's mother attacks and hauls the Geat warrior to her dimly lit cave.
Carrying a sword called Hrunting, a gift from the chastised Unferth, Beowulf dives into the mere to seek the mother. The slaughtered Aeschere's head sits on a cliff by the lake, which hides the ogres' underground cave. The next morning, Hrothgar, Beowulf, and a retinue of Scyldings and Geats follow the mother's tracks into a dark, forbidding swamp and to the edge of her mere. Filled with mead, wine, and great food, the entire party retires for what they expect to be the first peaceful night in years.īut Grendel's mother - not quite as powerful as her son but highly motivated - climbs to Heorot that night, retrieves her son's claw, and murderously abducts one of the Scyldings (Aeschere) while Beowulf sleeps elsewhere. Hrothgar's wife, Queen Wealhtheow, proves to be a perfect hostess, offering Beowulf a gold collar and her gratitude. This bard also improvises a song about Beowulf's victory.
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The Danes celebrate the next day with a huge feast featuring entertainment by Hrothgar's scop (pronounced "shop"), a professional bard who accompanies himself on a harp and sings or chants traditional lays such as an account of the Danes' victory at Finnsburh. The claw trophy hangs high under the roof of Heorot. The ensuing battle nearly destroys the great hall, but Beowulf emerges victorious as he rips Grendel's claw from its shoulder socket, sending the mortally wounded beast fleeing to his mere (pool). With the strength of 30 men in his hand-grip, Beowulf seizes the ogre's claw and does not let go. Angered by the joy of the men in the mead-hall, the ogre furiously bursts in on the Geats, killing one and then reaching for Beowulf. While the Danes retire to safer sleeping quarters, Beowulf and the Geats bed down in Heorot, fully aware that Grendel will visit them. In fact, the two swimmers were separated by a storm on the fifth night of the contest, and Beowulf had slain nine sea monsters before finally returning to shore. Beowulf responds with dignity while putting Unferth in his place. At a feast before nightfall of the first day of the visit, an obnoxious, drunken Scylding named Unferth insults Beowulf and claims that the Geat visitor once embarrassingly lost a swimming contest to a boyhood acquaintance named Breca and is no match for Grendel.
Hrothgar once sheltered Beowulf's father during a deadly feud, and the mighty Geat hopes to return the favor while enhancing his own reputation and gaining treasure for his king, Hygelac. Grendel rules the mead-hall nightly.īeowulf, a young warrior in Geatland (southwestern Sweden), comes to the Scyldings' aid, bringing with him 14 of his finest men. For 12 years, a huge man-like ogre named Grendel, a descendant of the biblical murderer Cain, has menaced the aging Hrothgar, raiding Heorot and killing the king's thanes (warriors). Scyld's funeral is a memorable early ritual in the work, but focus soon shifts to the reign of his great-grandson, Hrothgar, whose successful rule is symbolized by a magnificent central mead-hall called Heorot. The poem opens with a brief genealogy of the Scylding (Dane) royal dynasty, named after a mythic hero, Scyld Scefing, who reached the tribe's shores as a castaway babe on a ship loaded with treasure. The setting of the epic is the sixth century in what is now known as Denmark and southwestern Sweden. Beowulf is the longest and greatest surviving Anglo-Saxon poem.
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