Grendel

In the eighth century English epic called Beowulf, the monster Grendel is descibed. Grendel is a giant, half-man and half-monster. Every night Grendel would terrorize the hall of the Danish King Hrothgar, killing thiry of his men nightly. This started a terrible feud between Hrothgar’s court and Grendel that would last many years. Each night the creature would return and murder and destroy and no one could stop him, as he was under an enchantment that made Grendel invulnerable to a sword. Eventually, Beowulf came to Hrothgar’s court and swore that he would kill the beast.

Beowulf

by Brent P. Newhall

 
About one thousand to twelve hundred years ago, an unknown author put pen to paper and transcribed an epic that had already been circulating for about two centuries. The work which he wrote was a sweeping Anglo-Saxon tale entitled “Beowulf.” It is the oldest piece of English literature extant today, though it nearly did not make it here; it was almost destroyed by King Henry VII along with the monastery in which it was housed. A library fire threatened to take in 1731 before it was finally put in the British museum in 1753, where it remains today.