Head of Grendel (Stories of Beowulf)

Beowulf

Unknownc. 1000
MedievalModerateEpicOld EnglishMedium · 112 pages
Influence65th pct
Popularity71st pct
Where it ranks
#81of 194Overall#4of 10Medieval

Read this if you…

  • want the biggest influence on Lord of the Rings
  • want a real super dark brooding epic w creepy monsters/dragons
  • want to read a work that was lost for centuries, and rediscovered
  • want the oldest big-deal work of English literature (you'll need a translation, it's Old English)

Skip this if you…

  • aren't interested in early anglo saxon England

Why It Matters

Beowulf is the oldest surviving long poem in English and the work English literature starts from. It gave English-language storytelling its first great hero, its first great monster, and its first hard look at mortality and the futility of fame. Tolkien's scholarship on the poem fed directly into The Lord of the Rings.

The Groblé Take

Heaney translation is excellent. Such a great dark evil vibe. More impressed than I thought. Quite short, did it in 1 setting. Very lofty like the classical epics but more foreboding and a distinctly Germanic/english/scandinavian vibe.

Connections

Where to go next

Built Onwhat came beforeBeowulfGenesis

  • Genesis by Moses. Beowulf built on it. - *Beowulf*'s monsters are scriptural: Grendel is named a son of Cain, exiled kin of the man who slew Abel in Genesis 4 - The Flood reappears engraved on a sword-hilt — the *Beowulf* poet binds his pagan world to the Bible's earliest stories - Knowing Genesis first explains why these creatures are cursed, not just frightening — they carry Cain's punishment
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Gallery

Depicted in Art

Beowulf and his men hauling the severed head of Grendel back to Heorot, the giant head dragged by its hair across the floor.

J. R. Skelton, 1908

Wiglaf standing over the dying Beowulf as the slain dragon lies coiled in the background, the dragon's hoard scattered around them.

J. R. Skelton, 1908

Queen Wealhtheow offers a mead-cup to her husband King Hrothgar at the feast in Heorot.

J. R. Skelton, 1908

Beowulf in mail and helmet braced behind his shield as the dragon's fiery breath sweeps over him from above.

1914

Grendel as a brutish, wild-haired giant prowling at night, looming above human scale.

John Henry Frederick Bacon, 1910

Wiglaf kneeling beside the mortally wounded Beowulf after the dragon's fall, the old king's helmet at their feet.

J. R. Skelton, 1908

A page from the Kelmscott Press Beowulf with Morris's red rubricated summary at top, dense Troy-type black-letter body text, and ornamental woodcut borders along the margins.

William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, 1895

Editions

Recommended Editions

#1Top Pick$15.95$14.87

Seamus Heaney

W. W. Norton · 2001

Heaney's version is the one. His Northern Irish English lines up with Anglo-Saxon better than anything else in print, and the facing-page Old English lets you hear what the original is doing. The reason Beowulf became a bestseller in 1999.

Buy on Bookshop
#2

Maria Dahvana Headley

Farrar, Straus and Giroux · 2020

$17.00$15.84Buy
#3

R.M. Liuzza

Broadview Press · 2012

Buy

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Deep Dive

What It's About

Spoiler warning

This summary gives away plot details.

Notable Quotes

“So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness.”

— Opening lines · trans. Heaney

“Fate goes ever as fate must.”

— Beowulf

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