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61-696: Grendel is a figure in the poem Beowulf, preserved in the Nowell Codex . Grendel, being cursed as the descendant of the Biblical Cain , along with elves and other eotens , is "harrowed" by the sounds of singing that come every night from the mead hall of Heorot built by King Hroðgar . Unable to bear it any more, he attacks Heorot. Grendel continues to attack the Hall every night for twelve years, killing its inhabitants and making this magnificent mead hall unusable. To add to his monstrous description,

122-729: A fighter , the ambiguity would be of little consequence, for battle was destined for both Beowulf and Grendel and both were fierce fighters (216–217). Grendel likely features in English place names dating to the Anglo-Saxon period such as grendeles pytt ("Grendel's pit"), grendles mere ("Grendel's mere) and gryndeles syllen ("Grendel's bog"). It has been further noted that these places are often nearby, or are, watery places, such as lakes and marshes, or other locations away from human habitation. Grendel appears in many other cultural works . Nowell Codex The Nowell Codex

183-508: A bipedal dragon. Other scholars such as Sherman Kuhn (1979) have questioned Grendel's description as a monster, stating: There are five disputed instances of āglǣca [three of which are in Beowulf , lines] 649, 1269, 1512 ... In the first ... the referent can be either Beowulf or Grendel. If the poet and his audience felt the word to have two meanings – monster and hero – the ambiguity would be troublesome; but if by āglǣca they understood

244-477: A disdain for the ringing of church bells. Similarities are also both seen in their role in the construction of stoneworks. Akin to the Old Norse tale of the jötunn who built the wall of Ásgarðr , giants often enter into wagers involved in the building of churches which they later lose, as with the tale of Jätten Finn who is attributed with the construction of Lund Cathedral . Ruins are also attributed to

305-709: A group of wolves is referred to as "Gríðr's grey herd of horses". Wolf-riding gýgjar are referred to as myrkriður ("riders in the night") or kveldriður ("dusk riders"). Hræsvelgr is told in Vafþrúðnismál (37) and Gylfaginning (18) to be a jötunn in an arnarhamr (eagle-guise) who creates the wind by beating his wings. Other jötnar , such as Þjazi and Suttungr are able to become eagles by wearing their arnarhamir , or resemble them like Griðr in Illuga saga Gríðarfóstra who has hands like eagle talons. In later material composed during

366-437: A much wider semantic scope in Old Norse literature than solely jötnar , also including individuals with unusual or supernatural traits such as witches, abnormally strong, large or ugly people, ghosts and berserkers . Terms for jötnar are often translated into Modern English as "giant" or "giantess". John Lindow uses the glosses to contrast them with the gods but notes that they are not giant, being similar in size to

427-589: A naturalistic standpoint. Despite this, a system of motifs repeat when travelling to the jötnar . In the Prose Edda that the jötnar dwell in Jötunheimr which is at points located in the North or East and in Þrymskviða can only be reached by air, however jötnar are also found South and across water . Jötnar such as Suttungr and Skaði live in mountains, which is further reflected in

488-636: A poetic translation of Judith . Due to the fame of Beowulf , the Nowell Codex is also sometimes known simply as the Beowulf manuscript . The manuscript is located within the British Library with the rest of the Cotton collection . The current codex is a composite of at least two manuscripts. The main division is into two totally distinct books which were apparently not bound together until

549-488: A single physical appearance, and best thought of as a social grouping, some broadly shared traits have been identified such as living on the periphery of the world, outside society. In both Old Norse and Old English accounts, these borders between the realms of humanity and those of supernatural beings are often marked by water, such as rivers or the surface of lakes . This is notably consistent with Grendel's depiction as living in marshes and Maxims II , which identifies fens as

610-613: A time, spying the warriors inside. He then makes a sudden attack, bursting the door with his fists and continuing through the entry. The first warrior Grendel finds is still asleep, so he seizes the man and devours him. Grendel grabs a second warrior, but is shocked when the warrior grabs back with fearsome strength. As Grendel attempts to disengage, the reader discovers that Beowulf is that second warrior. Beowulf uses neither weapon nor armour in this fight. He also places no reliance on his companions and has no need of them. He trusts that God has given him strength to defeat Grendel, whom he believes

671-615: A translation of a Letter of Alexander to Aristotle . These are followed by Beowulf , which takes up the bulk of the volume, and Judith , a poetic retelling of part of the book of Judith . Great wear on the final page of Beowulf and other manuscript factors such as wormhole patterns indicate Judith was not originally the last part of the manuscript, though it is in the same hand as the later parts of Beowulf . The somewhat eclectic contents of this codex have led to much critical debate over why these particular works were chosen for inclusion. One theory which has gained considerable currency

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732-412: Is God's adversary. Beowulf tears off Grendel's arm, mortally wounding the creature. Grendel flees but dies in his marsh den. There, Beowulf later engages in a fierce battle with Grendel's mother in a mere, over whom he triumphs with a sword found there. Following her death, Beowulf finds Grendel's corpse and removes his head, which he keeps as a trophy. Beowulf then returns to the surface and to his men at

793-523: Is inhabited by jötnar and beings associated with them. A common motif is the journeying to obtain secret knowledge from the jötnar . In the Eddic poem Hyndluljóð , Freyja travels to the gýgr Hyndla to obtain understanding of the lineage of Ottar , and the "ale of remembrance" ( Old Norse : minnisǫl ) so that he does not forget it. In the Eddic poem Vafþrúðnismál , Óðinn travels to

854-539: Is noted for having the likeness of a þurs . As the influence of Christianity grew, jötnar became demonised and typically portrayed as less intelligent, easier to outwit and more monstrous, as is common with giants in later Germanic folklore . In some later sagas, such as Bárðar saga Snæfellsáss , risar are clearly distinct from jötnar however in others the terms are used interchangeably, albeit with an overall trend that jötnar have begun to be seen negatively relative to risar . Troll has

915-411: Is seen as problematic by some scholars as jötnar are not necessarily notably large. The terms for the beings also have cognates in later folklore such as the English yotun , Danish jætte and Finnish jätti which can share some common features such as being turned to stone in the day and living on the periphery of society. Old Norse : jötunn and Old English eoten developed from

976-636: Is that the compiler(s) saw a thematic link: all five works deal to some extent with monsters or monstrous behaviour. Eotenas A jötunn (also jotun ; in the normalised scholarly spelling of Old Norse , jǫtunn / ˈ j ɔː t ʊ n / ; or, in Old English , eoten , plural eotenas ) is a type of being in Germanic mythology . In Norse mythology , they are often contrasted with gods (the Æsir and Vanir ) and other non-human figures, such as dwarfs and elves , although

1037-493: Is the second of two manuscripts comprising the bound volume Cotton MS Vitellius A XV , one of the four major Old English poetic manuscripts . It is most famous as the manuscript containing the unique copy of the epic poem Beowulf . In addition to this, it contains first a fragment of The Life of Saint Christopher , then the more complete texts Wonders of the East and Letter of Alexander to Aristotle , and, after Beowulf ,

1098-607: The jötunn Vafþrúðnir whereupon they engage in a wisdom contest. He also travels to the jötnar to obtain from Suttungr the Mead of poetry , which imparts skill in poetry to any who drink it. The völva who tells the Völuspá prophecy to Óðinn, while not explicitly described as a jötunn but was raised by them. Cosmology in Germanic mythology, as with other oral cultures, has many apparent contradictions when viewed from

1159-592: The Faroese and Shetlandic popular customs of dressing up as giantesses referred to as Grýla (plural grýlur ), or other similar terms, in costumes traditionally made from a combination of animal skins, tattered clothes, seaweed, straw and sometimes featuring masks. Grýla is a female creature described in Sturlunga saga as having fifteen tails, and listed as a tröllkona in the Nafnaþulur section of

1220-1040: The Old Saxon adjective wrisi-līk 'enormous' is likely also connected. Old Norse þurs , Old English þyrs , and Old High German duris 'devil, evil spirit' derive from the Proto-Germanic masculine noun * þur(i)saz , itself derived from Proto-Germanic * þurēnan , which is etymologically connected to Sanskrit turá - 'strong, powerful, rich'. Several terms are used specifically to refer to female entities that fall into this wider category, including íviðja (plural íviðjur ), gýgr (plural gýgjar ) and tröllkona (plural tröllkonur ). Terms for jötnar are also found in Old Norse compound words such as bergrisi , ("mountain-risi") and hrímþurs ("rime-þurs", or "frost-þurs"). The cognates jötunn and eoten , and þurs and þyrs have been equated by scholars such as J. R. R. Tolkien and Rudolf Simek , with

1281-516: The Proto-Germanic masculine noun * etunaz . Philologist Vladimir Orel says that semantic connections between * etunaz with Proto-Germanic * etanan ('to eat') makes a relation between the two words likely. The words are cognate with ettin , an archaic word for a type of being. Old Norse risi and Old High German riso derive from the Proto-Germanic masculine noun * wrisjon . Orel observes that

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1342-410: The jötunn Eggþér who has been interpreted as either a guardian of the gýgjar who live there or a herdsman of the wolves. Wolves are also taken as mounts by gýgjar such as Hyndla and Hyrrokkin , the latter of which using snakes as reins. This is further attested in skaldic poetry in which "wolf" is described by the kennings " Leikn's horse", " Gjálp's horse", " Gríðr's horse", while

1403-435: The "ninth hour". He returns to Heorot, where a grateful Hroðgar showers him with gifts. J. R. R. Tolkien (1936) argues for the importance of Grendel's role in the poem as an "eminently suitable beginning" that sets the stage for Beowulf's fight with the dragon: "Triumph over the lesser and more nearly human is cancelled by defeat before the older and more elemental." Tolkien argues that "the evil spirits took visible shape" in

1464-476: The 17th century. The first of these, originally owned by Southwick Priory in Hampshire , dates from the 12th century and contains four works of prose. It is the second, older manuscript that is more famous. This second manuscript is known as the Nowell Codex, after the antiquarian Laurence Nowell , whose name is inscribed on its first page; he was apparently its owner in the mid-16th century. At some point it

1525-418: The 790s. The tale of Agnar tells how he was cut in half by the warrior Bödvar Bjarki ( Warlike little Bear ), and how he died "with his lips separated into a smile". One major parallel between Agnar and Grendel would thus be that the monster of the poem has a name perhaps composed of a combination of the words gren and daelan . The poet may be stressing to his audience that Grendel "died laughing", or that he

1586-483: The Christian period such as the legendary sagas, jötnar are often portrayed as uncivilised and cannibalistic. In the case of Bárðar saga Snæfellsáss and Hálfdanar saga Brönufóstra they specifically eat both human and horse meat , the latter of which was directly associated with heathen practices. The post-Christian association between jötnar and pre-Christian practices is also seen in Beowulf , in which

1647-474: The Cottonian fire, with many words faded or illegible, some of which are far from the edges of the leaf. Van Kirk Dobbie suggests the damage to the third of these pages was due to Beowulf being separated from Judith prior to the 17th century, and fol. 201b was on the outside of the manuscript with no binding to protect it. But he offers no explanation for the condition of the first two pages. The damage to

1708-494: The English ettin or yotun , thurse and hobthrust , Danish jætte , Swedish jätte and Finnish jätti . In Germanic folklore , giants often share traits with jötnar , particularly as depicted in legendary sagas, combined with motifs from other European giants and are often interchangeable with trolls . As with jötnar , Germanic giants live outside of human communities, in woods and mountains. They commonly show an aversion to Christianity, often showing

1769-801: The Loch of Scockness to drink. Orcadian folklore also explains the Ring of Brodgar as dancing giants who were turned to stone by the morning sun. This motif is also seen in Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar , in which the gýgr Hrímgerðr engages in a senna with Helgi Hundingsbane until the sun rises and she is turned to stone. The Orcadian tradition of Gyro Night derives its name from Old Norse : gýgr and consisted of two older boys dressing up as masked old women one night in February and chasing smaller boys with ropes. Similar to this are

1830-417: The Nowell Codex can be overcome to different degrees. The three pages in bad shape mentioned above have been studied under ultraviolet light, and the resulting information has been published. Three modern transcriptions of parts of this portion of this manuscript are known. Two of these transcriptions, known as A and B, were made under the direction of the first editor of Beowulf , Grimur Jonsson Thorkelin in

1891-475: The Old Norse record, with eotenas also featuring in the Old English epic poem Beowulf . The usage of the terms is dynamic, with an overall trend that the beings become portrayed as less impressive and more negative as Christianity becomes more influential. Although the term " giant " is sometimes used to gloss the word " jötunn " and its apparent synonyms in some translations and academic texts, this

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1952-459: The appearance of jötnar are uncommon; however, the progenitor of the jötnar is described as having the form of a man. Some female jötnar are described as being beautiful, such as Gerðr and Hymir 's partner, while others are described as monstrous and having many heads. Some dwarfs are described as jötnar such as Regin and Fáfnir , while in Alvíssmál , the eponymous dwarf

2013-409: The characteristic living place for þyrsas . Katherine O'Keefe (1981) has suggested that Grendel resembles a berserker , because of numerous associations that seem to point to this possibility. Sonya R. Jensen (1998) argues for an identification between Grendel and Agnar, son of Ingeld, and suggests that the tale of the first two monsters is actually the tale of Ingeld, as mentioned by Alcuin in

2074-401: The characters of Grendel and the dragon; however, the author's concern is focused on Beowulf. Tolkien's essay was the first work of scholarship in which Anglo-Saxon literature was seriously examined on its literary merits – not just for scholarship about the origins of the English language, or what historical information could be gleaned from the text, as was common in the 19th century. During

2135-579: The claimed ancestors of the Ynglings . Odin also seduces the jötnar Gunnlöð and Rindr and marries Jörð . In the cases when gods marry jötnar , they appear to be fully incorporated into the gods and are referred to as Ásynjur in Nafnaþulur . Consistent with this, reference to Skaði's vés in Lokasenna and toponyms such as Skedevi in Sweden suggests that despite being a jötunn , she

2196-486: The decades following Tolkien's essay, the exact description of Grendel was debated by scholars. Indeed, because his exact appearance is never directly described in Old English by the original Beowulf poet, part of the debate revolves around what is known, namely his descent from the biblical Cain (the first murderer in the Bible ). Grendel is called a sceadugenga – "shadow walker", in other words "night goer" – given that

2257-538: The descendants of jötnar . A common motif that often forms the core storyline of Eddic narratives is the unsuccessful attempts of jötnar to marry one of the goddesses, be it through either trickery or force. In contrast, the female jötunn Skaði chooses the male Vanr Njörðr as a husband. According to the Ynglinga saga , she later had children with Odin, from whom kings such as Earl Hakon were descended. The Vanr Freyr also marries Gerðr , who are

2318-491: The dragon in Beowulf . Tolkien points out that while Grendel is the descendant of the Biblical Cain, he "cannot be dissociated from the creatures of northern myth". He notes that Cain is presented as the ancestor of beings such as eotenas and ylfe , which he equates with their Old Norse cognates of jötnar and álfar . He further argues that this blending of traditions is intentional and seen throughout

2379-476: The fight with mother of the eoten Grendel which has been noted by scholars to closely resemble the fight between a trollkona and Grettir in his eponymous saga , wherein the female beings may only be reached by crossing through water. The seemingly ununified location of the jötnar has been suggested to be an outcome of their intrinsically chaotic nature. Even within the same story, what seem like contradictions have been noted by scholars, prompting

2440-458: The first gods , resulting in a flood of Ymir's blood, in which all jötnar drowned except Bergelmir and his family, who survive this event by way of sailing upon a luðr . This has been linked to a runic inscription on a sword hilt in Beowulf which describes the eotenas being killed in an ancient flood and has been proposed to derive from Germanic and wider Indo-European mythology . According to Gylfaginning , after Ymir

2501-527: The gods, and are best conceived of as a kin or family group, separated by relation rather than physical appearance. Due to this issue, some scholars such as Terry Gunnell, Jeramy Dodds and Benjamin Thorpe either anglicise or leave untranslated terms for jötnar in translations and academic work. In a stanza of Völuspá hin skamma (found in the poem " Hyndluljóð ") all jötnar descend from Ymir . Gylfaginning elaborates on this, describing that

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2562-407: The groupings are not always mutually exclusive. The entities included in jötunn are referred to by several other terms, including risi , þurs (or thurs ) and troll if male and gýgr or tröllkona if female. The jötnar typically dwell across boundaries from the gods and humans in lands such as Jötunheimr . The jötnar are frequently attested throughout

2623-505: The man-eating eoten Grendel is described as having a "heathen soul" and "heathenish hand-spurs". Female jötnar are explicitly described as being heathen in some later sources such as Orms þáttr Stórólfssonar , in which religion prevents her from being with the hero, and the legendary saga Þorsteins þáttr bæjarmagns , in which she must be baptised before marrying the hero. Giants with names cognate to terms for jötnar are found in later Northern European folklore , such as

2684-433: The monster was repeatedly described to be in the shroud of darkness. After Grendel's death, Hroðgar describes him as vaguely human in shape, though much larger: Grendel's disembodied head is also so large that it takes four men to transport it. Furthermore, when Grendel's torn arm is inspected it is described as being covered in impenetrable scales and horny growths. Some scholars have linked Grendel's descent from Cain to

2745-532: The monsters and giants of the Cain tradition . Alfred Bammesgerber (2008) looks closely at line 1266 where Grendel's ancestry is said to be the "misbegotten spirits" that sprang from Cain after he was cursed. He argues that the word in Old English geosceaftgasta should be translated "the great former creation of spirits". In 1936, J. R. R. Tolkien 's Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics discussed Grendel and

2806-408: The poem more generally. Grendel specifically is described as both an eoten and a þyrs , cognate with Old Norse : jötunn and þurs respectively; it has been proposed that the poet and the audience of the poem would have seen Grendel as belonging to this same group of beings as the jötnar of Scandinavian tradition . While jötnar in Old Norse accounts are highly diverse, lacking

2867-452: The poet details how Grendel consumes the men he kills, "now that he could hope to eat his fill." Beowulf hears of these attacks and leaves his native land of the Geats to destroy Grendel. He is warmly welcomed by King Hroðgar, who gives a banquet in celebration. Afterwards Beowulf and his warriors bed down in the mead hall to await the inevitable attack. Grendel stalks outside the building for

2928-468: The primordial jötunn Ymir formed in the warm waters that arose in Ginnungagap when the rime of Niflheim was melted by the heat of Muspelheim . He lay there asleep, fed by milk from Auðumbla , whereupon from his left armpit he sweated a male and a female, and his legs begat a son with one another. Together, these children became the ancestors of all other jötnar . Later, he was killed by

2989-503: The proposal of a model that the otherworld where the jötnar dwell can be reached from a number of passages or boundaries that cannot be traversed under normal conditions, such as the mountains, darkness and "flickering flame" crossed by Skírnir in Skírnismál . In Eddic sources, jötnar present a constant threat to gods and humans, often leading them to confrontation with Thor . Hárbarðsljóð and Þrymskviða tell that if it

3050-408: The terms Old Norse : bergrisar (mountain risar) and Old Norse : bergbúi (mountain dweller), a kenning for jötunn . Their lands of inhabitation are not restricted to this, also including forests, underground, and the shore. Sometimes they are referred to as living in specific geographical locations such as Ægir on Læsø . These motifs are also seen in the section of Beowulf concerning

3111-534: The text of the poem before it suffered fire damage. The first codex contains four works of Old English prose: a copy of Alfred 's translation of Augustine 's Soliloquies , a translation of the Gospel of Nicodemus , the prose Solomon and Saturn , and a fragment of a life of Saint Quentin . The second codex begins with three prose works: a life of Saint Christopher , Wonders of the East (a description of various far-off lands and their fantastic inhabitants), and

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3172-537: The words being used to describe the being in either Old Norse or Old English respectively. In the Eddas , jötnar are beings typically with similar power to the gods and may also be referred to by the negative terms troll and þurs . The harmful nature of þursar is also described in the Icelandic and Norwegian rune poems , where they are identified for causing strife to women. Descriptions of

3233-568: The works of both beings, as in the Old English poem The Ruin and the aetiological story of Wade's Causeway in Yorkshire . Some standing stones in northern Europe are explained as petrified giants such as the Yetnasteen in Orkney which derives its name from Old Norse : Jǫtna-steinn ( Jötunn's stone). According to folklore, it awakens every New Year at midnight whereupon it visits

3294-581: The years 1786-1787 after the Cottonian fire yet before the manuscript had deteriorated as far as it presently has. Transcript A was made by an unidentified professional copyist, while B was made by Thorkelin himself. The third transcript (MS Junius 105, currently in the Bodleian Library ) is of the Judith poem and was made by Franciscus Junius between 1621 and 1651. A careful copy of the poem with only occasional errors, Junius' transcription preserves

3355-473: Was gren-dael[ed] or "grin-divid[ed]", after having his arm torn off at the shoulder by Beowulf, whose name means bee-wolf or bear . Peter Dickinson (1979) argued that seeing as the considered distinction between man and beast at the time the poem was written was simply man's bipedalism , the given description of Grendel being man-like does not necessarily imply that Grendel is meant to be humanoid, going as far as stating that Grendel could easily have been

3416-491: Was combined with the first codex. It was then acquired by Sir Robert Cotton . In his library, it was placed on the first shelf (A) as the 15th manuscript (XV) of the bookcase that had a bust of the Emperor Vitellius , giving the collection its name. The Nowell Codex is generally dated around the turn of the first millennium. Recent editions have specified a probable date in the decade after 1000. The Nowell Codex

3477-444: Was heavily damaged in 1731 when a fire partially destroyed the Cotton library . While the volume itself survived, the edges of the pages were badly scorched; no serious attempt at restoration was made until the 19th century, by which time the margins had crumbled irreparably, and the edges of many pages are now illegible. Three pages, fol. 182a, fol. 182b and fol. 201b are in notably bad shape, showing more damage than can be explained by

3538-505: Was killed, his body was wrought into the world and a sea surrounded it. The gods then gave the surviving families jötnar lands along the shore to settle, placing them in the periphery. Ymir's brows were then used to build Midgard and protect it from the jötnar due to their known aggression. Most stories in Old Norse mythology show a clear division between "This World", pertaining to that of gods and men, and "The Other", which

3599-510: Was not for Thor and Mjöllnir , jötnar would soon overrun Midgard and Asgard respectively. Nonetheless, Thor also has a positive relationship with some gýgjar , such as Gríðr and the unnamed wife of Hymir , who provide magical items and council that enable him to overcome other jötnar . The distinction between gods and jötnar is not clearly defined and they should be seen as different culturally rather than biologically, with some gods, such as Odin , Thor and Loki being

3660-460: Was worshipped in Old Norse religion . One of the tröllkonur who dwell in the wood Járnviðr is a mother of jötnar in the forms of wolves and from whom are descended all wolves. This tröllkona has been suggested to be Angrboða , the gýgr who begat with Loki the monstrous wolf Fenrir and venomous worm Jörmungandr who become enemies of the gods. Also in Járnviðr dwells

3721-475: Was written in two hands. The first extends from the beginning of the manuscript (fol. 94a) as far as the word scyran in line 1939 of Beowulf ; the second hand continues from moste in that same line to the end of Judith . Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie notes that although the scribes behind the two hands are contemporary, they differ markedly in appearance, the second hand appearing "to belong to an older school of insular writing than its companion hand." The volume

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