STORY BOOK

BY KYLA E. PANCHO

GRADE 9 CSSA-EMERALD
THE SEVEN AGES OF MAN
THE DAY OF DESTINY
THE BATTLE WITH GRENDEL
JOY CRISCEL IMPERIAL
MARY JOY SALAMERO
K
Mordred makes himself King of England and incestuously claims Guinevere as his wife.
Guinevere escapes to the Tower of London. The Bishop of Canterbury reproaches
Mordred for his usurpation and would-be incest, and when Mordred tries to kill him, he
flees and becomes a hermit. Mordred wins many Englishmen to his side, then meets
Arthur at Dover but is forced to retreat from him.

In this battle Gawain is mortally wounded. As he dies he admits to Arthur that if it were
not for his insane pride in insisting on unjust revenge, Launcelot would be here now to
save the kingdom; then he writes Launcelot, begging him to come help Arthur and also
to pray at his tomb. Then, bleeding from the wound he got originally from Launcelot
with the fated sword of Balyn Gawain dies.

Arthur meets Mordred again at the battle of Bareon Down and again puts him to flight.
They meet next at Salisbury Plain, and there, with all who loved Launcelot fighting on
Mordred's side, they prepare for what is to be their last battle. The night before the
battle, Arthur dreams he is on the Wheel of Fortune, sitting on a throne and dressed in
the richest gold that can be made:

And the kynge thought there was undir hym, farre from hym, an hydeous depe blak
watir, and therein was all maner of serpentis and wormes and wylde bestis fowle and
orryble. And suddeynly the kyrige thought that the whyle turned upso-downe, and he
felle anionge the serpentis, and every beste toke hym by it lynnue. And than the kynge
cryed as he lay in hys bed, "Helpe! Helpe!"

After the prophetic dream he has another. Gawain and a number of ladies come to him
to warn him against fighting in the morning for if Arthur fights, he will die; if he waits for a
month, Launcelot will be here to help him. Then Gawain and the ladies vanish.

Arthur asks a truce, and the two armies meet on the field to set terms. An adder
appears, a knight unthinkingly draws his sword to kill it, and the two armies are at war.
At the end of the day, Mordred is the only man of his army left standing, and Arthur has
only two knights, Sir Lucan and Sir Bedivere. Against Sir Lucan's advice, Arthur fights
Mordred and kills him, but he gets his own death wound as he does it. Lucan and
Bedivere bear him to a chapel. Robbers overrun the battlefield stealing the gear of dead
knights, killing any that have life left in them.
Arthur is dying and cannot be moved to safety. And so he sends Bedivere to throw
Excalibur into the lake nearby, then return and tell what he has seen. Bedivere hides the
sword under a tree, thinking it too precious to throw away, then returns and says he has
obeyed. "What did you see?" Arthur asks. Bedivere says he saw only waves and winds.
Arthur sends him twice more, and the last time Bedivere does as he has been
commanded. A hand catches the sword and brandishes it three times.

Then at Arthur's command, Bedivere carries the king to the waterside, where a barge
awaits him and some ladies in black hoods. Bedivere puts Arthur in the barge and he is
borne away to Avilon, perhaps to heal his wounds, perhaps to die. Bedivere wanders
through a forest until he comes to where a hermit is kneeling over a fresh grave. It is the
grave of a man brought to him at midnight by ladies in black. Whether or not the body is
8+really that of Arthur, no one knows. Some say Arthur still lives, and some say riot.

The battle with grendel

Unfortunately, Grendel has an overprotective mother who decides to avenge her son.
While all the warriors are sleeping off the party, she attacks Heorot Hall. But when the
warriors wake up, she panics and flees back to her lair, a cave underneath a nearby
lake.

Beowulf, his Geatish warriors, and some of Hrothgar's Danish warriors track her there.
Beowulf dives into the lake and finds the cave, where he takes on Grendel's mother in
another one-on-one battle. Seizing a nearby sword from Grendel's mother's stash of
treasure, he slays her, even though her poisonous demon blood melts the blade. When
Beowulf returns to the surface, carrying the sword hilt and Grendel's severed head, the
Danish warriors have given him up for dead, but his own Geatish followers are still
waiting patiently. When everyone sees that Beowulf has survived this second challenge,
there's even more partying and gift-giving.

Finally, the Geats take their leave of the Danes; Beowulf says goodbye to King Hrothgar
and sails back to Geatland, where he is a lord in the court of King Hygelac. Eventually,
Hygelac and all his relatives are killed in differentblood-feuds, and Beowulf becomes the
King of the Geats. Beowulf reigns as king for fifty years, protecting the Geats from all the
other tribes around them, especially the Swedes. He is an honorable and heroic warrior-
king, rewarding his loyal thanes (warrior lords) and taking care of his people.
 But one day, Beowulf finally meets his match: a dragon, woken by a thief stealing a
goblet, begins attacking the Geats, burning villages and slaughtering people. Beowulf
takes a group of eleven trusty warriors, plus the thief who knows where the dragon's lair
is, to the barrow for a final showdown with the monster. When they see the dragon, all
but one of the warriors flee in terror. Only one man, Wiglaf, remains at Beowulf's side.
With Wiglaf's help and encouragement, Beowulf is able to defeat the dragon, but he is
mortally wounded in the process.

After Beowulf's death, the Geats build an enormous funeral pyre for him, heaped with
treasures. Once the pyre has burned down, they spend ten days building an enormous
barrow (a large mound of earth filled with treasure) as a monument to theiThe narrator
tells us that a clan called the Spear-Danes, in "days gone by" (that's the past, to
you) had some awesome heroic kings.
The first of these hero-kings is Shield Sheafson, who is basically awesome
because he could rampage and pillage with the best of themboth on the
battlefield and in the mead hall, if you get our drift. He is an orphan, but he
eventually becomes king and then subjugates other nearby clans, making them
pay tribute to the Spear-Danes.
Shield's son is Beow, a wise, prudent, valiant prince who sympathizes with the
hardships his people have endured.
Shield dies in the prime of his life and is buried at sea in a ship loaded with
wealth and treasures, according to the custom of the Spear-Danes. It sails off
and nobody knows what happens to it.
Beow becomes king and rules long and well. He is succeeded by Halfdane, a
warlord who has three sons, Heorogar, Hrothgar, and Halga, and one daughter.
Halfdane's daughter isn't given a name in the poem, although we assume that
she had one, but we do learn that she marries Onela, the king of the Swedes.
Halfdane's son Hrothgar is fortunate in battle and gradually amasses the most
followers and wealth of any of the princes, so he becomes king after his father.
To consolidate his power, Hrothgar builds a grand mead-hall, Heorot Hall, which
does dual duty as a throne room and a hangout for the powerful members of his
"court." Okay, we say court, but it's really just a bunch of tough barbarians in
grimy, blood-smeared armor sitting around a rough wooden table drinking mead
and talking about battles.
When Heorot Hall is finished, Hrothgar gives out treasures to his followers to
celebrate and thank them for their help. The narrator knows, however, that the
 hall is doomed to burn down in the midst of a bloody battle. So much for
suspense, right? But don't worry; it's still going to be totally awesome.
A local demon named Grendel is disturbed by the presence of Heorot Hall; like
your neighbors, he hates to hear everyone drinking and partying and listening to
music. It's even worse because the bard is singing about God's creation of the
world, which is something that drives demons crazy.
Grendel, who is one of the monstrous descendants of the Biblical outcast
Cain, has been hanging around the marshes in the area for a long timelike,
since Cain.
One night, Grendel attacks Heorot Hall in the dead of night, when everyone is in
a sleepy, alcohol-induced stupor. Grendel kills thirty men and takes their corpses
back to his lair. Now that guy knows how to throw a party.
In the morning, everyone is shocked and horrified by the destruction that Grendel
caused. King Hrothgar is humiliated and seems helpless.
The next night, Grendel comes back and marauds some more. In fact, Grendel
shows up almost every night, hunting down Danes and murdering them.
Eventually, Heorot Hall is abandoned; everyone has been killed or fled. For
twelve years, Grendel rules the hall at night.
The story of Grendel's rampages, the suffering of the Spear-Danes, and the
helplessness of King Hrothgar spreads throughout the world. People tell stories
and write sad songs about it. Nothing can stop Grendel; he won't negotiate or
even accept a ransom or bribe, and he kills everyone, young and old alike.
(This is especially disturbing for a medieval European audience, because paying
money to end feuds and wars was part of their code of behavior. Refusing to do
so seems insane, because otherwise how would the killing ever stop?)
So Grendel pretty much takes over Heorot Hall, although God keeps him from
approaching Hrothgar's throne. (That kind of thing happens when you're the
descendant of Cain, apparently.)
Everyone wants to give King Hrothgar their two cents about how to get rid of
Grendel. Some of them give advice about military strategy; others turn to idolatry
and offer sacrifices to pagan gods.
The narrator condemns their paganism and rejoices in the fact that he lives in a
time where people know Christianity and can turn to "the Lord God, Head of the
Heavens and High King of the World" (181-182) for help. (Confused about
religion in Beowulf? Check out what we have to say about religion in the
"Themes" section.)
 Despite all the good advice, Hrothgar and his followers can't defeat Grendel, and
he keeps killing the Danes in the darkness of night.
Across the water from the Danes in Geatland (today part of Sweden), the
mightiest warrior on earth, a follower of King Hygelac, decides that he will travel
to the Spear-Danes and help King Hrothgar defeat Grendel. He orders that a
boat be made ready.
Everyone knows better than to argue with this warrior or try to stop him. Instead,
they help him get ready. They enlist fourteen other warriors to accompany him.
Loading their ship with weapons, the mysterious hero and his followers set sail.
After a day at sea, they come to the Danish coast, where they thank God for their
easy passage.
The Danish warrior on lookout duty rides down to the shore to find out who the
new warriors are and whether they're on a mission of peace or of war. He issues
a formal challenge to the Geats to explain who they are and why they've come,
and he notices how noble and mighty the mysterious hero looks.
The warrior explains that he is a Geat, a follower of King Hygelac, and the son of
a noble and famous warlord named Ecgtheow. He explains that the Geats
haven't come to fight the Danes, but to help fight the demonic enemy of the
Danes.
The lookout believes the warrior and allows him to pass; he even promises that
he'll set a guard over the Geats' boat to keep it safe until they need to return
home.

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