Beowulf had an unusual name. It means bee-wolf. Some old English people (Saxons) called the bear a bee-wolf. A bear’s face was dog-like, or wolf-like, and it often nosed into beehives to eat honey. People thought it was eating bees, so they called it a bee-wolf. The man Beowulf became a powerfully strong fighter, so he gained that name too.

Beowulf was born in the Middle Ages, A.D. 495, in Denmark. At the age of seven, he was sent to southern Sweden where he lived with his grandfather, and later his uncle, who were kings in the tribe of Geats there. When his uncle died, Beowulf rejected the chance to become king. Instead, he agreed to be guardian for a ten-year-old prince while he was a child-king.

Beowulf and the Monsters
Beowulf liked adventure more than ruling the land. A band of warriors adventured with Beowulf. In those days warriors often vowed loyalty to their lord, or leader, and a group trusted and respected each other and risked their lives for each other. They shared the plunder they gained through victories. Beowulf with his band of warriors fought and killed monster animals.

One kind of monster was called “wormkind,” large serpent creatures that lived in hidden lairs sometimes near a swampy lake. At high tide the lakes could be connected with the sea, so monsters could traverse from one environment to the other if they liked. The wormkind that lived deep in the sea were called sea dragons. A species of sea dragon was the wave-thrasher (ythgewinnes in Old English) that swam along the surface.1 Vikings carved these onto the prows of their ships to try to ward off real dragons. As if land and sea monsters weren’t enough, villagers also were threatened with huge flying reptiles. Books today have dinosaur names for these various monsters. The flying kinds are called pterosaurs. Most dinosaurs are extinct now or almost so, but now and then some sightings show that a few survivors remain in the world.

The main monster in the story of Beowulf is Grendel. That is capitalized as though it is a proper name like Fido or Black Beauty. But it was a species of serpent. People spoke of grendels pond or grendels pit or grendels wood, naming them according to where they lived. Grendel in the story was a grendel mere because he lived in a large brackish pond full of coarse ferns. He probably had a loud, deep-throated growl. Hints about that are an ancient word grindill that means to bellow, and a Middle English word grindel that means angry.

Grendel lived in Denmark. He hunted at night, finding humans in the darkness and devouring them with his huge jaws full of teeth. Watchers were hired to guard at night, but sometimes they, too, were killed by the “mouth-bone.” The Danes were so terrorized they thought Grendel was worse than an animal. He was the enemy of God; he belonged in the devil’s hell.

For twelve years the Danes suffered from Grendel. Their swords and arrows and other weapons could not penetrate the monster’s hide. Then Beowulf, at twenty years of age, and his band of warriors sailed to Denmark. The king there knew Beowulf from his early childhood. He received the band gladly. He had heard of their success in clearing the Baltic sea lanes of numerous monsters and making the lanes safe for navigation. He knew, also, how they killed land monsters in Geat.