13 Facts About Grendel

Grendel is a character in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf .

Grendel is one of the poem's three antagonists, all aligned in opposition against the protagonist Beowulf.

Grendel is usually depicted as a monster or a giant, although his status as a monster, giant, or other form of supernatural being is not clearly described in the poem and thus remains the subject of scholarly debate.

Grendel is a character in the poem Beowulf, preserved in the Nowell Codex.

Grendel, being cursed as the descendant of the Biblical Cain, is "harrowed" by the sounds of singing that come every night from the mead-hall of Heorot built by King Hrothgar.

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Grendel continues to attack the Hall every night for twelve years, killing its inhabitants and making this magnificent mead-hall unusable.

Grendel is warmly welcomed by King Hrothgar, who gives a banquet in celebration.

Grendel then makes a sudden attack, bursting the door with his fists and continuing through the entry.

The first warrior Grendel finds is still asleep, so he seizes the man and devours him.

Grendel is called a sceadugenga – "shadow walker", in other words "night goer" – given that the monster was repeatedly described to be in the shroud of darkness.

Alfred Bammesgerber looks closely at line 1266 where Grendel's ancestry is said to be the "misbegotten spirits" that sprang from Cain after he was cursed.

Grendel argues that the words in Old English, geosceaftgasta, should be translated "the great former creation of spirits".

Katherine O'Keefe has suggested that Grendel resembles a berserker, because of numerous associations that seem to point to this possibility.