The real story of Beowulf

umm..it's fiction...unless you think dragon's are real!

It's anonymously written Old English heroic epic poem.

But Ragman, if reality were suspended, then what would be the real story????

Ragman--

Dragons are real. They frequently go bump in the night--with flares.

hehehe!

Got a light, Grendel?

Ragman--

I identify with Mother Love.

Odd, isn't it--or perhaps not so odd, given the Code of the Hero--that Grendel's Mother doesn't have a name of her own?

I meant the real version of the fiction story. I checked out the net for one that was completely different from the movie. So I was just wondering what actually happened in the story. Was the story suppose to end the way the movie did or was it suppose to end where Beowulf was honoured by his best friend?

Great Books
Beowulf vs. Grendel



Man vs. monsters


Friends, the most popular movie in America is, of all things, an animated film based on a thousand-year-old poem written in Old English--the old Germanic language that eventually became today's English language. Friends, it's Beowulf.

The poem took shape between the 8th and 11th century, but the theme is age-old: it's man vs. monsters. It's Beowulf vs. Grendel. Every child knows Grendel--not by name, but in spirit. Grendel is the monster that lives under your bed. It's Grendel's foot that makes the floorboards creak at night after you've put out the light. Grendel is the horrible thing that lurks in the darkness and waits for you to go to sleep.

In Beowulf, the epic poem, a Danish king named Hrothgar knows Grendel all too well. Hrothgar has built himself a magnificent drinking hall, but when he and his men start feasting there, Grendel ruins the party. Grendel sneaks up on them when they have fallen asleep and kills and devours them thirty at a time. The walls and floor are spattered with blood and gore, and Hrothgar is at a loss. Not one of his warriors can match Grendel's raw strength and ferocity.

A Hero Emerges

But across the water in southern Sweden live a people called the Geats, and when word reaches them of Grendel's killing, their greatest warrior sets sail to test his strength against the monster. His name is Beowulf, and he is so strong that he decides to sleep in Hrothgar's hall without any weapons, saying it would be too easy to slay Grendel with a sword since the monster fights bare-handed.

So Beowulf lays down in the hall and pretends to sleep, and when Grendel creeps up on him, Beowulf seizes him by the arm. The monster tries to twist away and run, but Beowulf is too powerful. They wrestle there in the hall until Grendel, in desperation, tears his arm from the socket and flees, mortally wounded, back to his lair to wait for death.

A Mother Avenges

But kill one monster and another steps forward to take its place. Grendel's mother, in true Anglo-Saxon fashion, comes looking for revenge, and she kills Hrothgar's greatest warrior in the drinking hall. Beowulf, undaunted, tracks her to the watery place where she lives and swims to the bottom, where he battles and kills her, too.

Beowulf the hero returns to the Geats and becomes a good and wise king, tempting his wyrd (fate) against the monsters that threaten until the end. (Yes, there are even more monsters for him to fight.) And Beowulf the poem becomes the greatest achievement of Old English literature, both a window on the culture of the Germanic peoples who took England from the Celts and a tale of the hero's ongoing struggle against the terror that thrives in the darkness

Unless you can read Anglo-Saxon, finding the "real," original version of the fictional tale won't help you much. By the way, neither Grendel nor his mother were described as dragons. However, when the character Beowulf was an old man, he went out and fought a dragon, and although triumphant, got his death wound in the contest. What we have of Beowulf are fragments of a much longer tales. Basically, we have only the beginning and the end of the saga of Beowulf.

The image above is from the British Library, and is an image of a page of the earliest surviving manuscript. It is, of course, written in Anglo-Saxon.

I edited the links from my last post, when i found out they wouldn't work properly. However, if you go here, you will find a good many resources on Beowulf, including a link to the text in Anglo-Saxon (look to the left of page, to the list of links).

No-one has mentioned yet, but you all know of course, that a new translation by Seamus Heaney of Beowulf won a Nobel Prize in 2000.

Here is a NYT review.

http://www.nytimes.com/library/books/032900heaney-profile.html

BEOWULF/BEOWOLF is one of the many old german sagas and mystical stories . many of these probably pre-date recorded germanic history .
BEOWULF is considered the most extensive old german HELDENEPOS (hero worship poem) of its time . it is variously dated as having appeared between 500 and 1,100 .

there are many references to these SAGAS in german history .
the largest number of them can be found in the PROJECT GUTENBERG ( link to german site) .
BEOWULF is only one of the many mystical persons , starting with THOR and ending with DIETRICH and the NIBELUNGEN .
the BROTHERS GRIMM popularized many of these persons in their modern sagas that were very popular in germany from about 1850 on .
the books were lavishly illustrated and considered "must reading" for german boys when i grew up - certainly very thrilling stories before video games became available . we'd sometimes act out parts of these roles in street games .

here are the various "legends" described in great detail in the PROJECT GUTENBERG .



here you can find another link to BEOWULF .
note that you can link to the english translation in the lower left .
hbg

if you are interested in the lifes and works of the BROTHERS GRIMM , you may find these two links useful :


BROTHERS GRIMM HOMEPAGE

MYTHS AND FOLKLORE