What happened in the Battle of Beowulf and Grendel?

Category: books and literature poetry
4.8/5 (1,503 Views . 34 Votes)
Beowulf's warriors draw their swords but their blades cannot pierce Grendel's hide. After a feverish and bloody one-on-one battle, Beowulf finally tears Grendel's arm off at the shoulder. Grendel retreats to his home in the marshes and dies, leaving Beowulf victorious and Heorot free from the terror of Grendel.



Correspondingly, what happens in the battle between Beowulf and Grendel?

Grendel and Beowulf battle each other violently. Beowulf's retainers draw their swords and rush to his aid, but their blades cannot pierce Grendel's skin. Finally, Beowulf tears Grendel's arm from his body at the shoulder and Grendel runs to his home in the marshes where he dies.

Subsequently, question is, why did Grendel and Beowulf fight? Beowulf goes to fight Grendel to help the people of Herot, but more importantly to gain glory for himself. He intends to fight the beast with his bare hands, and he does, and wins by doing so.

Keeping this in consideration, where did the battle happen in the story of the battle with Grendel?

In Beowulf, the battle with Grendel is set at Heorot, the royal hall of Hrothgar, the Danish king.

What is the story of Beowulf and Grendel all about?

A Danish king (Stellan Skarsgard) recruits a foreign warrior (Gerard Butler) to battle the vengeful son (Ingvar E. Sigurdsson) of a slaughtered troll.

39 Related Question Answers Found

What happens when Grendel enters Heorot?

What happens when Grendel enters Heorot? When Grendel enters Herot, he eats one of the men and when attempting to do the same with Beowulf, Beowulf grabs Grendel, who now realizes Beowulf is not a man of ordinary strength. Therefore, Grendel attempts to flee, but Beowulf was able to rip his arm off and kill him.

What does heorot mean?

Heorot, also Herot, is a mead-hall described in the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf as "the foremost of halls under heaven." It served as a palace for King Hroðgar, a legendary Danish king of the sixth century. Heorot means "Hall of the Hart".

Is Grendel a villain?

In Beowulf, that little tidbit of information makes Grendel pure, 100% villain—he is a monster, and he is evil by nature. On top of that, the reason he comes to act so badly is that the Shaper casts him in the role of villain. Grendel feels that he has to be bad since that's the only identity given to him.

How did Beowulf die?

Beowulf dies during battle with a dragon. In the second part of the poem, Beowulf has ruled over the Geats for fifty years, and he is a good leader. Beowulf and Wiglaf fight the dragon together, and although they kill the dragon, Beowulf is fatally wounded.

Why does Grendel kill?

The most obvious motive for Grendel's attack is envy and a sense of exclusion. He hears the laughter in the mead-hall, hates the Danes and their merry-making from which he is excluded, and resolves to kill them. Even slaughtering thirty does not satisfy him and he returns night after night to drown his misery in blood.

Does Beowulf kill Grendel's mother?

After Grendel is killed, Grendel's mother attacks Heorot in revenge. Beowulf then ventures into her cave under a lake, and engages in fierce combat with Grendel's mother. She nearly kills him until he sees an ancient sword, with which he kills her, and beheads the dead Grendel.

What happens the night after Grendel's defeat?

What happens the day after Beowulf defeats Grendel? What does Grendel's mother do the night after Grendel was murdered? She goes to Herot to avenge her son's death. She kills Hrothgar's closet friend, retrieves Grendel's arm from the rafters where Beowulf had hung it, and returns to her lake.

What does Beowulf ask to see before he dies?

Beowulf orders Wiglaf to go into the barrow, look at the treasure, and bring back some of it for him to see before he dies. Wiglaf obeys Beowulf's dying wish and goes down into the barrow, where he finds amazing piles of treasure, all of it rusting and decaying. The dragon is gone, killed by Wiglaf's sword.

What is the significance of Beowulf?

Beowulf. Beowulf, heroic poem, the highest achievement of Old English literature and the earliest European vernacular epic. It deals with events of the early 6th century and is believed to have been composed between 700 and 750.

Is Beowulf older than the Bible?

XV were Christian beyond doubt, and it is equally sure that Beowulf was composed in a Christianised England since conversion took place in the sixth and seventh centuries. The only Biblical references in Beowulf are to the Old Testament, and Christ is never mentioned.

What was Beowulf's reward for killing Grendel mother?

To avenge Aeschere's death, the company travels to the murky swamp, where Beowulf dives into the water and fights Grendel's mother in her underwater lair. He kills her with a sword forged for a giant, then, finding Grendel's corpse, decapitates it and brings the head as a prize to Hrothgar.

How old is Grendel?

Grendel. Grendel, fictional character, a monstrous creature defeated by Beowulf in the Old English poem Beowulf (composed between 700 and 750 ce). Descended from the biblical Cain, Grendel is an outcast, doomed to wander the face of the earth.

Which event finally reveals Grendel's fear?

Grendel finally shows fear when A he is held fast in Beowulf's grip.

Is Beowulf a true story?

Like all legendary stories, Beowulf mixes elements of fact and fiction, and there is historical evidence for many of the events that the poem depicts. However, there has been no evidence discovered of a real Beowulf, and scholars speculate as to whether or not the 'Beowulf poet' completely invented him or not.

Why did Beowulf rip Grendel's arm off?

Their battle concludes with Beowulf's ripping Grendel's arm off, fulfilling his promise to Hrothgar to kill the monster with his bare hands. Beowulf nails Grendel's severed arm to the mead hall rafters and, although Grendel runs away, he is later found to have bled to death in his underwater lair.