Hrothgar, you'll notice, who is the son of Healfdene,
creates this mead hall during that period of peace
in the Danish history, which is very rare,
most the time the people of that territory were fighting constantly with each other
they're always these civil wars going on,
internecine and fighting all the time and there is a brief period here
where there is no serious warfare, where
Hrothgar decides that he's going to build a mead hall, a large
hall for feasting and joy and revelry
and he builds this hall that is towering up to the sky, beautiful and
gilded, and shines like the sun and it's a
monument that's going to outlast him, something he wants
future generations to remember him by and
consequently it's something which he pours his whole
life into and that generosity of spirit, that generosity of money to build
something that will benefit his people
a place for their own happiness, a place where they can make merry together.
That generosity shows him to be a good king.
He builds the hall and of course it's quite the success and
people come from miles around to enjoy the companionship of one another
and that hall is in all respects like
an image of the world. The ancient Norse saw the world
as an island in the midst of water
and there was a dome of the sky overhead that the Sun traversed over
and down from the island of the earth there was the roots of the earth
that stretched into this giant tree they called Yggdrasil
and Yggdrasil had different worlds within it
and therefore this world of light
and joy and life is mirrored in that world of life
and joy and light in the mead hall of Heorot.
Heorot is itself like a small image
of that joyful world in which we live.
But into that mead hall comes this terrible creature, as it
says this child, this descendant of Cain,
this troll, he is the Grendel which
is a name that means the "grinder" one who grinds up lives
and out of jealousy he comes to attack
the mead hall. Grendel's a creature who
despises life, and despises joy, and despises happiness
and out of envy he seeks to end that joy
and the lives of those men and so he comes and he attacks the mead hall
and he devours the guests that are sleeping there
thinking that they are protected and he
continues to attack for several years,
until finally people are afraid to come to the mead hall and they start
leaving and fleeing from Heorot and so Heorot becomes not a place of joy, but a
place of
terror and sorrow and awfulness.
It's much like in our world today which could be a beautiful place
sometimes there are people that create evil, create strife, create violence,
and may cause the world, which otherwise is beautiful, become like a living hell
and Hrothgar begins to despair because he doesn't know how to stop this
and in the midst of that despair, and that
sorrow where everybody's leaving him we need somebody to step in, to come in, and
destroy this Grendel somebody of courage and merit
to destroy that creature because no one else seems able to do so.
That takes us into the second section.