The+coming+of+Grendel

//**The Coming of Grendel**// This segment of Beowulf's epic opens with kingly praise and detailed explanation of Herot hall. Readers learn that the hall was built with the people's tax money, and was used as a place for festivities to praise the soldiers, and the only thing that could destroy it would be fire.

About line 25, the description of Grendel begins. We are first introduced to Grendel by means of the **kenning (**descriptive element subsituting names) "a powerful monster," instead of his actual name. The explanation for his introduction is explained in lines 25-37; joy and mirth cause the creature to stir, since he is forever banished to the dark perimeters of the Dane's land. He is related to the readers as living down in the darkness; which is an archetypal for badness and evil. Dark vs. Light --- and dark will always triumph in the night, good things do not happen in the dark.

His dark depiction is related through Christian subtilties -- //"He was spawned in that slime, Conceived by a pair of those monsters born of Cain, murderous cratures banished by God.......The Almighty drove those demons out, and their exile was bitter"// Grendel is depicted as the manifestation of man's sin -- pure evil, and a demonic creature.

Line 52 has reference to darkness once again, when Grendel emerges from his hole in the ground, that bad things happen in the night. The following lines emphasize Grendel's size, as he //'Snatched up thirty men'// (59) yet goes undetected, which proves to the reader that he's not blundering about, and has a stealthy ability about him. Which is terrifying.

His capability to eat, cause destruction and reak havoc without being able to be stopped goes on for quite a while, which makes Hrothgar look week, and vulnerable to the monster and his attacks, his honour is on the line, and being taken from him by a creature of the demonic night.

The rest of the lines continue to explain how Herot hall is closed for twelve years (which is a factor of three) and stories of the demon haunting the land are told, and word spreads of Hrothgar's curse. People become aware that Grendel is in this for the kill, the pure enjoyment and satisfaction of murder; he has no diplomacy, there is nothing that he can be bribed with. The Chrisitan Monk sticks his hand in for a good while and explains that the Danes would not have been under the retribution of this creature if they didn't pray to their Pagan gods, and that God is love, but God doesn't love Grendel. So basically, everybody is just waiting for demise. That is, until the Geat, Beowulf hears the tale, and sails overseas to save the day.