This section is the famous fight with Grendel scene
and you'll notice here that Grendel, when he comes to the hall, it's not the first time he has come
to the hall,
and now when he puts forth his hand to open the door, the doors burst asunder
at his touch because he's that powerful a monster that he just bursts right in
and when he comes in he immediately grabs
some of the warriors that are lying there waiting for him, some of the Gaets that are waiting
for him,
and he devours and bolts them down hands and feet and all, it's a very graphic scene.
But when he comes to Beowulf, Beowulf has made this vow
that he's not going to fight with any swords against the monster
and consequently that's a saving vow, it's a vow that he boasts he wants to try
his own metal
against the monster but it saves him in the end because what happens is,
that no sword can pierce Grendel and so when Beowulf
grapples with him mano e mano, he actually
is at an advantage because he's not using a sword against him at all.
Well the two grapple and the whole hall rings with the sound
of their wrestling and eventually the strength
of the Gaet wins out against the strength of Grendel
and when Grendel feels that he's being defeated he tries to flee,
but Beowulf has him tight, has him gripped tight and it's that sense that
evil itself is terrified of a hero, of a heroic
character, a good man, and he wants to, Grendel wants to, flee from
the hall and flee back to his own cavern in order to hide from Beowulf,
but Beowulf won't let him go and he grapples him in the arm and finally
tears off his arm and Grendel goes fleeing into the night
to bleed to death in his own hall and so he's defeated
by the power of Beowulf. What was originally a boast
on the part of Beowulf, that is he was going to fight without a sword,
has now become his triumph, it's been
the thing that allows him to win out over Grendel and he hangs up this
tremendous arm
up in the rafters for everybody to see as a sign of
the fact that he's actually defeated this horrible monster.
So that's the end of these three sections, this fight with Grendel.
In the next section there's a slight shift that occurs here because
Hrothgar comes in and he tells this story to Beowulf
and the poet is taking a lay, a song,
that would have been popular at the time and incorporating it into his own
poem. So we see here next, in this next section, a story that Hrothgar is
telling
as a sort edification story or a contextual story,
part of the rejoicing over the fact that Grendel has been defeated.
So that's in this next section.