Grendel
Anglo Saxon · numen · heroic age · Recorded classification
THE REGISTRY HELD BEOWULF AND NOT GRENDEL. The poem is in three parts and each is a fight with one being; the corpus held eleven Geats and none of the three. The record does NOT describe him as a giant, a troll or a dragon: the poem calls him a creature of the fens, a descendant of Cain, and an eoten and a scucca, and what he looks like is the thing the poem most conspicuously withholds.
Parentage
- parent: Grendel's mother
Relations
- killed by: BeowulfNon-symmetric, so nothing is written onto the pre-existing Beowulf record.Reference treatment: Beowulf rips Grendel's arm out of its socket and Grendel goes back to the swamp to die. (secondary)
Sources
- Grendel is the fen-dwelling descendant of Cain who empties Hrothgar's hall for twelve years and is killed by Beowulf, who tears off his arm.: Reference treatments of Beowulf and of Grendel. (secondary)