Grendel's mother

A FIGURE WITH NO NAME AND THE CLEAREST MOTIVE IN THE POEM. She does exactly what the poem's own ethic requires of a kinsman: she takes one life for one life, and she takes it from the man the king loves best. The record files her under the phrase the poem uses and invents no name, as lane 20 did for Marjatta's son.

Children

• Grendel

Relations

• mother of: Grendel
• killed: Æschere
• killed by: Beowulf

Sources

• Reference treatments of Beowulf and of Grendel's mother.