Richard Nokes is talking about the Beowulf animation too, saying he must break the second commandment of medieval blogging, which is “Thou shalt not suggest Neil Gaiman is a mere mortal.” He says that Gaiman has Beowulf fight Grendel in the nude. It’s in the poem, Gaiman says, but Nokes can’t quite find it. I need to read this thing again. He concludes:
Regardless, it is disconcerting how often the words “nude” and “naked” are being associated with this new Beowulf movie. If Hollywood is that desperate to have nudity in a canonical work of medieval literature, they might pick something out of the Decameron — it gives lots of options. (via Blogwatch)
(I’m sure this post will up our blog rating. We have been a PG blog for instances of death and murder.)
But getting back to the movie, I’ve always pictured Grendel as a big monster, not a humanoid thing, like this in fact. I can’t read that post, but I think I saw that image of Grendel when I was first exposed to Beowulf. That’s a troll as I’ve always known them.
I’ll have to break down and read the poem again.
This is from memory, but I think Beowulf strips down when he dives into the lake (or loch) to go after Grendel. The image of the troll is an impressive one Phil, but it in no way conforms to the description in the poem. (Which refers to short, small arms.)
– I recommend the recent version by Seamus Heaney. (There may be better ones.)I may have mentioned this before (ah, memory) but there’s an audio version of H. reading the poem.
That one looks like a rather large Gollum.
Well, maybe the poem got it wrong then. Hmpf
I re-read the poem this weekend, and noted in particular a passage in Section XX that says, “…they have seen two such huge walkers in the wasteland holding to the moors, alien spirits. One of them, so far as they could clearly discern, was the likeness of a woman. the other wretched shape trod the tracks of exile in the form of a man, except that he was bigger than any other man. Land-dwellers in the old days named him Grendel….”
That sure sounds humanoid to me.
I also note that there’s a dragon at the end of the poem, and it’s clearly identified as a dragon. No circumlocution about it.
I therefore conclude that Grendel and his mother were human-shaped beings, probably trolls.
Human-shaped, but huge too, right?
Yes, clearly. I’ve never personally thought of Grendel as being as large as the creature in your picture, but there’s no way of knowing what the old Anglo-Saxons had in mind.
Another note: Beowulf (to my surprise) did not strip down to jump in the mere. He swam down wearing his full coat of mail, and apparently had no trouble breathing (perhaps he was related to Aquaman).