Tuesday, November 4, 2014

In the story of "Beowulf," where does the monster Grendel live?

This is actually sort of a difficult question because the origins of the words used to describe Grendel's home are unclear in the old texts.  Translated, the text says something like this...Grendel is:



"in moorland living," (from chapter one)



A moorland is a land full of moors, which is sort of like a boggy, scraggly, inhospitable place.  There is reference to "Grendel's Mere""Grendel's Pit" and "Grendel's Peck" in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.  These would lead the reader to believe that Grendel is living in some kind of underground pit, watery cave, or nasty hole within a swamp, though it never really says.  It's a safe bet, though...Grendel's mother does indeed live in some kind of underwater cave in the swamp, so this probably would support the idea that Grendel lived in one too.

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