Learn about monsters in Beowulf with a description and list. Discover Grendel, Grendel's mother, and the dragon, the main antagonists in this heroic epic. Updated: 11/21/2023
Monsters in Beowulf | List & Description
Frequently Asked Questions
What three monsters does Beowulf fight?
Beowulf fights Grendel, Grendel's mother, and the dragon. Each monster is harder to defeat than the last, and the dragon kills Beowulf.
Who is Beowulf's first monster?
Grendel, an exile, is Beowulf's first monster. Grendel is said to be a descendant of Cain, and he possesses both human and animal attributes.
Beowulf, a heroic poem, is the oldest surviving English work of literature. It follows the protagonist, the Scandinavian hero Beowulf, as he faces down fearsome monsters. The poem starts in the mead-hall of King Hrothgar. In the hall, soldiers drink and make merry, safe from the dangers of winter. Yet their merrymaking angers the monster Grendel, who starts terrorizing the kingdom and killing the king's men.
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Defeating such a monster requires a great hero, and that is exactly how the text presents Beowulf. Monster or not, he is willing to lay down his life to defend his honor and protect his people. Beowulf first takes down Grendel, and then he kills Grendel's mother. After many years go by, he faces off with a dragon. This last monster is the mightiest challenge, and though the old warrior succeeds in killing the dragon, he falls prey to its mortal bite. The poem ends with his people mourning the loss of their king, fearful of what his death will bring.
Grendel is the first monster in Beowulf. An exile, Grendel is "march-river mighty, in moorland living, in fen and fastness." Grendel is in every way an outcast, and he resents the fact that he has been rejected by society.
When the Danes celebrate in Hrothgar's hall, Grendel gets jealous, and decides to get his revenge -
"Unhallowed wight,
grim and greedy, he grasped betimes,
wrathful, reckless, from resting-places,
thirty of the thanes, and thence he rushed
fain of his fell spoil, faring homeward,
laden with slaughter, his lair to seek."
Grendel refuses to make a peace agreement, and he won't even accept a payment of gold in return for a promise to stop attacking Hrothgar and his men. The Danes stop using the mead-hall, Hereot, but Grendel chases them down in the countryside anyway. Soon, the word gets out, and people far and wide hear of Grendel. Beowulf, the great hero, soon arrives, promising to do battle with the monster.
During the course of their battle, many of Grendel's characteristics are revealed. He seems to be a representation of both physical and moral evil, and his makeup is a hybrid of human and animal. Early in the poem, Grendel is identified as a descendant of Cain, the first murderer in the Biblical story of Cain and Abel.
Grendel delights in eating the king's thanes, or lords. The poem relates that he tore one apart, "the bone-frame bit, drank blood in streams, swallowed him piecemeal." However, this turns out to be a gruesome foreshadowing of Grendel's own demise.
When Beowulf meets Grendel in battle, he finds the monster immune to the blows of his sword. So, the hero grips Grendel's hand, meeting evil head-on. As the two grapple, Beowulf pulls off Grendel's arm:
"the outlaw dire
took mortal hurt; a mighty wound
showed on his shoulder, and sinews cracked,
and the bone-frame burst."
Grendel runs back to his den, mortally wounded, and the Danes celebrate.
After Grendel's death, his mother is introduced:
"Grendel's mother,
monster of women, mourned her woe."
Thus, the cycle of violence continues. This is what makes the poem so enduring: it is not just a tale of single combat, but a motif, or recurring idea or theme, that unites the whole work. This is the most important of the Beowulf motifs — hero and monster.
Grendel's mother, "gloomy and grim, would go on that quest of sorrow, the death of her son to avenge." She snatches up King Hrothgar's favorite, slaying him in cold blood while Beowulf, is fast asleep in another hall. When he awakes, it becomes his duty to slay this second monster, much as he did the first.
This time, it's much harder for Beowulf, for Grendel's mother lives in the swamp, and he must follow her into it to defeat her. He finds a sword underwater and is finally able to hack her head off with it.
Beowulf then returns home to Geatland, in modern-day Sweden. There, he rules for many years, and his people enjoy peace and quiet. Yet towards the end of his reign, a dragon appears, wreaking havoc on the countryside. As Beowulf prepares to face the dragon, his people abandon him. Only Wiglaf remains loyal.
Beowulf is now an old man who has ruled over Geatland for 50 winters. Just as it was harder to kill Grendel's mother than it was to slay Grendel, it is harder for him to fight the dragon than it was to dispatch Grendel's mother. This escalating difficulty is typical of heroic poems, and of literature in general. As a character's legend grows, so must the challenges they face.
As fate has it, Beowulf has met his match in the dragon. The mighty worm is a "folk-destroyer, fire-dread dragon," a "murderous monster mad with rage." This is the archetypal enemy, the personification of evil, and Beowulf is the hero with one last quest before him. After a long struggle, the dragon closes its jaws around Beowulf's torso. As blood billows down, Wiglaf strikes the dragon with his sword, and Beowulf deals a death-blow with his war-knife.
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Beowulf has given his life to save his people from evil. He is succeeded as king by Wiglaf, who looks towards the future with apprehension. So end Beowulf's monsters.
Beowulf is the oldest extant work of literature in English. The heroic poem relates the adventures of Beowulf, a Scandinavian hero, and his battles with three monsters. The first monster, Grendel, gets jealous of the Danes' celebrations in the mead-hall, Hereot, and he starts killing and eating thanes. His attacks persist even after the Danes abandon the mead-hall, so Beowulf comes from across the sea to save them. He does battle with Grendel and kills him by tearing his arm off.
The story continues when Grendel's mother arises from the swamp to avenge the death of her son. Luckily, Beowulf is able to defeat her, albeit with some difficulty. He returns to Geatland, his home, and rules for fifty winters. That's when a fearsome dragon appears and menaces his people, who run into the forest and hide. Only Wiglaf remains to help the old king, who struggles mightily with the dragon. Finally, Beowulf kills the dragon, suffering a mortal wound himself, and names Wiglaf king in his stead.
Additional Info
Grendel
The story begins with the Danish king Hrothgar, whose kingdom is being terrorized by a monster named Grendel. Though the poem is short on physical details of Grendel, leaving more to the readers' imagination, we know that he is huge, has claws, and likes to eat people. Grendel is a descendant of Cain, the biblical figure who murdered his brother Abel, and was forever banished from mankind by God.
Grendel is miserable as he sits in his stinking hole, listening to the sounds of joy and merriment in the great Mead Hall Heorot. Full of jealousy, he creeps up to the hall in the darkness, where he discovers several thanes passed out from their celebrations. He eats a few, and takes others back home to munch on later. This continues each night, and even as the Danes flee into the moors, Grendel picks them off one by one.
But hunger isn't what is driving this monster. He is driven by jealousy. These men are happy, but the wretched Grendel can never be happy, or take part in the joys that men experience. So, he stalks and terrorizes them, finding satisfaction in their misery.
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Across the sea in Geatland, Beowulf hears of Hrothgar's plight with the monster Grendel. He decides to go and kill it, and earn a reward from the rich Hrothgar, and a place in songs and history. Beowulf and thirteen of his best men arrive on the shores of Denmark, ready for battle.
After a feast in Heorot, the Danes go off to their beds, and Beowulf's men hide and wait in the hall. Grendel creeps in amongst the sleeping men, grabs one, and eats him right there, delighted at this easy prey. Beowulf strikes, deciding to fight Grendel with his bare hands. In what amounts to a wrestling match that shakes the very walls of Heorot, Beowulf tears the arm off the mighty monster. Grendel runs away, back to his underwater cave, where he bleeds to death.
Grendel's Mother
The mighty hero doesn't get much rest. The very next night, one of Hrothgar's thanes is snatched from the hall at Heorot. Beowulf learns that there were actually two monsters plaguing Denmark, Grendel and his mother. He and his men follow the blood-trail to a boiling and glowing lake. There, they see the head of the murdered thane sitting on the lakeshore, in a 'come and get me' taunt. Beowulf jumps into the lake and swims down to Grendel's Mother's lair, an underwater cave as big as any Mead Hall.
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Her motivation is easily understood: she wants revenge for the killing of her son. This is obvious in the way she taunts them, leaving the head out for all to see. It's notable that her choice of victim was King Hrothgar's best friend. While Grendel's killings were random, his mother's hate is focused. She wants to kill Beowulf.
As Beowulf nears the bottom of the lake, Grendel's Mother grabs him in her claws and pulls him into her lair. The lair is a dark, dry cave, with weapons hanging on the wall. The dead body of Grendel is there, too. Beowulf is nearly overcome in this fight, as she tries to pierce his sides with her claws, and stab him with a rusty dagger. Both times Beowulf's chain mail saves him. She tries to bite off his head, but her teeth only break through his helmet.
Beowulf grabs a Giant's sword from the wall and cuts her through the neck, killing her. The blood causes the blade to melt. He beheads Grendel as his final retribution, and takes the head along with the jeweled hilt of the Giant's sword, and swims back up to the surface, where his men wait for him.
The Dragon
The dragon is awakened from slumber when a slave stumbles into its cave. Thinking the dragon is asleep, he steals a cup from the hoard. The dragon sees this, and enraged by the thievery, begins terrorizing all of Geatland. Beowulf, though fifty years older now, knows that he must go and fight this fire-breathing menace.
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The dragon is motivated by greed in his attack on Geatland. When his hoard was intact, the dragon was content to sleep amongst his treasure. But once the cup was stolen, the dragon's greed overtakes him, and he flies out of his cave to wreak havoc on the land.
Beouwulf and the best of his fighters, including Wiglaf, his close friend and kinsman, approach the dragon's cave. When they see the ferocious beast, the thanes all run away in fear, except for Wiglaf. This is a terrible breach of the Heroic Warrior Code, which proclaims that thanes protect their king at all costs.
Beowulf and Wiglaf fight the dragon together. Beowulf is mortally wounded but manages to slice the dragon open, slaying it. As Beowulf gasps his last breath, he tells Wiglaf to rule Geatland wisely and well. The thanes creep back, ashamed, and they are met with the sight of Wiglaf kneeling over Beowulf's body. Now king, Wiglaf banishes the cowardly thanes and orders a tower to be built in Beowulf's memory.
Lesson Summary
The hero faces three monsters in the epic poem Beowulf, and each monster gives him more trouble than the last. The jealous Grendel, who wanted to inflict fear and misery, was defeated with small effort and no weapons. Grendel's Mother, who sought to avenge her son's death, was killed using chain mail and a sword. And the dragon, who was terrorizing the people of Geatland out of greed, was slain with chain mail, a sword, and a shield, and ended up costing the mighty Beowulf his life.
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