Grendel’s mother
Who is Grendel’s mother?
• She has no name
• A monstrous hell-bride, spawn of Cain
• ‘branded an outlaw, banished’ in the
fen ‘accursed, moved into the wilds’
• Grendel’s mother is ‘grief-racked and
desperate for revenge’
• She comes to Heorot Hall
Who is Grendel’s mother?
• She has no name
• A monstrous hell-bride, spawn of Cain
• ‘branded an outlaw, banished’ in the
fen ‘accursed, moved into the wilds’
• Grendel’s mother is ‘grief-racked and
desperate for revenge’
• She comes to Heorot Hall ravening
What does she take as her prize?
•She takes King Hrothgar’s most beloved
retainer
•Her attack is described ‘as an Amazon
warrior’s strength’
•She takes Grendel’s bloodied hand – their
trophy
Old Norse etymology
• ‘grindill’ – storm
• ‘grenja’ – to bellow
• ‘grinder’ - destroyer
• Grendel’s mother is identified by her
position/ role as mother – no name.
Good Females vs Bad Females?
• The night before Grendel’s mother’s attack,
the inset poem – Hildeburh – the model
woman.
• Hildeburh is virtuous- she laments she
cries, sorrowful = is passive.
• Queen – takes rhetorical role, political,
entreats Beo to take care of her two sons.
• Gendel’s mother is raging, violent, active.
Her sorrow = violence.
Beowulf
as he readies himself for battle
1. Dons his fine-webbed mail tunic
2. His helmet
3. Takes Hrunting – Unferth’s sword
The Fight with Grendel’s mother
Beo swims to the bottom for ‘the best
part of a day’.
She drags Beo to her watery court.
The sword Hrunting fails him.
Sees a sword from her armory, an
ancient heirloom from days of giants,
Where was Beowulf?
• Was given lodging elsewhere,
conveniently missed the attack
What is King Hrothgar’s reaction
to the attack?
• Sorrow for Aeschere, who is taken
• Hrothgar describes Aeschere as a
‘ring-giver’
Where was Grendel’s mother
before this?
• The country people mention seeing a
female marauder, ‘warped’, prowling
the moors.
• Fatherless creatures, who dwell
among wolves on the hills.
Second phase of Beowulf’s
development - maturity
• Hrothgar’s grief overtakes him, asks
Beowulf to hunt Grendel’s mother
• Blood Feud - Beo reminds Hrothgar of the
Heroic code, to avenge than to indulge in
mourning
• “Bear up and be the man I expect you to
be.”
Grendel’s mother’s watery lair
• Infested with sea monsters
• Bloodied and ‘hot gore’
• Womb like
What does Beowulf wear to battle
• The monsters
exemplify in their
behaviors what the
Germanic cultures
feared and abhorred
most – disloyalty,
outlawry, cowardice,
malice, and greed
3 ways to read Beowulf epic
• Aristocratic poem concerned with
kings/kingship
• Archaeological relic – Old English
Social life (mead Hall, female male
gender roles), Old English Politics
(ring giver, sword giver)
• Primacy – has literary merit
• Fame – the hero’s persistent goal of
gaining fame
Christianity and the Warrior code
of battle
• The poem is full of Christian
sentiment.
• The Christianity is superimposed on a
pagan code of battle – heroismkingship- the warrior code