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An illustration of Grendel's mother by J. R. Skelton from Stories of Beowulf (1908) described as a "water-witch" trying to stab Beowulf. Grendel's mother (Old English: Grendles mōdor) is one of three antagonists in the anonymous Old English poem Beowulf (c. 700–1000 AD), the other two being Grendel and the dragon.
The name Wealhtheow is unique to Beowulf.Like most Old English names, the name Wealhtheow is transparently recognisable as a compound of two nouns drawn from everyday vocabulary, in this case wealh (which in early Old English meant "Roman, Celtic-speaker" but whose meaning changed during the Old English period to mean "Briton", then "enslaved Briton", and then "slave") and þēow (whose ...
Ælfhere – a kinsman of Wiglaf and Beowulf. Æschere – Hroðgar's closest counselor and comrade, killed by Grendel's mother. Banstan – the father of Breca. Beow or Beowulf – an early Danish king and the son of Scyld, but not the same character as the hero of the poem; Beowulf – son of Ecgtheow, and the eponymous hero of the Anglo ...
Grendel's mother violently kills Æschere, who is Hrothgar's most loyal advisor, and escapes, later putting his head outside her lair. Hrothgar, Beowulf, and their men track Grendel's mother to her lair under a lake. Unferth, a warrior who had earlier challenged him, presents Beowulf with his sword Hrunting. After stipulating a number of ...
Grendel fled back to the bog to die from his wound, and his arm was attached to the wall of Heorot. The next day, Beowulf was lauded and a skald sang and compared Beowulf with the hero Sigmund. However, during the following night Grendel's mother arrived to avenge her son's death and collect weregild. As Beowulf slept in a different building he ...
In Beowulf's two earlier battles, Grendel and Grendel's mother are characterized as descendants of Cain: "[Grendel] had long lived in the land of monsters / since the creator cast them out / as the kindred of Cain" [15] and seem to be humanoid: in the poet's rendition they can be seen as giants, trolls, or monsters.
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.
[41] [42] The novelist Maria Dahvana Headley's 2020 translation is relatively free, domesticating and modernising, though able to play with Anglo-Saxon-style kennings, such as rendering aglæca-wif as "warrior-woman", meaning Grendel's mother. Her feminism is visible in her rendering of the lament of the Geatish woman at the end of the poem: [43]