#and Beowulf challenged him to an arm wrestling match

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Beowulf: The Original Gary Sue

Beowulf. Ah isn’t he just the best! He is so great in fact that he single-handedly (sort of) inspired the most amazing parts of The Lord of the Rings and Skyrim. However, despite its legacy and the fact that it is the oldest “English” text in existence, Beowulf is a very simple story. Or at least simple by epic poetry standards, just look at The Odyssey. And that is because a lot of its text is just ramblings of the Kings, lineages, politics and just exposition dump. (I guess in that sense it really is a high fantasy story) However, once you get rid of all of the fluff, it is a story about how a guy defeated three monsters, becomes a King on the way and had the most rad funeral ever. However, despite how great the exposition is, I will be skipping most of that dump mainly for this summary because well… it adds nothing to the actual story. I will add details where necessary. Let’s begin!

Quest #1 Grendel the Giant

So our story starts with King Hrothgar of Denmark, the son of King Shield Sheafson. The King enjoys an excellent long successful reign. So successful in fact that he decides to build a great mead-hall called the Heorot where his warriors can come and party it up, get gifts, drink. You know basic Nordic stuff. Now the Heorot being the ultimate party place is not very nice to live next to. Especially not for a grumpy giant like our friend Grendel. Since there was no police at the time to shut your noisy neighbors up, Grendel comes up with the only logical solution to this conundrum: Murder! Grendel comes every night to kill the people in Heorot to send them a message. However, again these are Norsemen we are talking about, so they continue partying it up and decide to try and fight the giant to stop him. However, after many nights of murder and party and murder and again partying our hero eventually enters the story.

Our hero Beowulf hears the plight of the people of Denmark and inspired by the challenge of fighting a Giant and decides to ride there with some men and defeat the Giant. King Hrothgar who had connections with Beowulf’s father accepts Beowulf’s help and holds a feast for Beowulf’s honor. Cause partying before killing a Giant that is killing you for partying too much is the best plan of action. On top of this fabulous party plan, Beowulf has an even better plan. You see, giants aren’t warriors and don’t use weapons so it stands to reason that Beowulf shouldn’t use any armor or weapons either. This fantastic plan makes everyone in the party even more excited for this future sparring match. However, a man named Unferth has doubts about Beowulf’s capabilities. Inconceivable! You see, sometime in the past Beowulf lost a swimming match with Breca and Unferth has a hard time believing that a loser like Beowulf could defeat the Giant. And Beowulf accepts that despite going through the water for five days and five nights in armor he couldn’t beat Breca as Beowulf got distracted by the eight sea monsters he defeated. What a shame!

At last, after getting sick of all the drinking and cheering Grendel decides to enter for the showdown. The two have a fist match until Beowulf proves himself the stronger fighter. Beowulf with his own bare arms tears of Grendel’s entire arm from his body. Grendel mortally wounded, walks back to his swamp to die alone as his arm gets hung from the top of the mead-hall as a trophy. What an honorable victory! Everyone cheers for their new hero. Unferth admits that he made a mistake by doubting Beowulf and gives Beowulf a cool power-up sword called Hrunting, a sword that has never failed in a battle. (Spoiler Alert: The sword fails in battle)

Quest #2 Grendel’s mother

I guess Grendel didn’t die all alone after all Since a fantasy story without a revenge subplot can’t exist and Grendel’s mother decides to get some age-old retribution against the Danes. Grendel’s mom (from here on out “Lady Giant”) enters the Heorot and kills Aeschere, one of Hrothgar’s trusted advisers. She also steals the trophy arm and returns home. I am sure that how no one heard the Giant sneak in, kill a man and also take a famous trophy is subject to much scholarly debate. However, that is not our concern as King Heorot once again summons Beowulf and his men to go and have some vengeance against the Lady Giant for taking revenge against them.

As our brave heroes ride following the tracks of their enemy they come across and cliff and find Aeschere’s head lying on the ground. Below the cliff is your generic RPG monster swamp. Time for Beowulf to grind some EXP as he jumps into the swamp with no fear of death and defeats all the monsters with a bow and arrow and sinks deeper into the swamp. Now you would think that this would lead to Beowulf drowning and dying of suffocation, but if so you apparently haven’t been paying attention. A little swamp in the lungs only slowly bores Beowulf who simply slowly sinks down to the bottom, probably checks twitter a few times. As he reaches the bottom, the Lady Giant ambushes him and drag him into her cave.

Beowulf, enters another epic showdown, this time with the Lady Giant. He tries to use the sword Hrunting against her but fails. Even the legendary sword is no match for the Giantess. So much for a sword that has never failed in battle. Beowulf decides to resort to the bare arm ripping trick but fails that too as the Lady Giant matches his every blow. However, since this is a hero story, Beowulf finds a conveniently placed sword, made conveniently by Giants. He uses the conveniently massive sword and swings it at the Giantess and kills her. It turns out both Grendel and his mother were incapable of being harmed by human weapons, so a sword made by Giants was the only way to kill her. Oh, and the sword was also conveniently one-time use only and after slicing the Giantess’ head, it melts leaving just the hilt. Beowulf grabs the handle and the Grendel’s face which was in the Lady Giant’s cave and swims back up.

Our heroes return to the mead-hall in triumph and the Danes party it up one last time. King Heorot who has practically adopted Beowulf as his son by this point gives a mighty speech about how great Beowulf will be and how to be a good King and warrior. King Heorot tells his subjects that the only way to greatness is to pursue spiritual over the earthly things. He tells everyone how eternal rewards are much more fruitful than materialistic rewards and then gives Beowulf some gold and materialistic treasures as a reward. Yay! Beowulf is thoroughly satisfied and done with all the partying returns to Geatland when he reunites with his King Hygelac and tells the King of his adventures in Denmark. Beowulf presents his King with most of the treasures he earned in his Giant killing Quests. In time the King Hygelac dies in a battle against the Shylfings, and the kingdom falls to Beowulf because King Hygelac’s widow thinks that Beowulf is just the best. Since Beowulf is just the best, he decides only to be the protector of the actual heir. But the heir dies anyway, and Beowulf becomes the King. Such is Destiny.

Quest #3 Dragon Slaying

King Beowulf being the amazing King he rules the Geats for fifty years wisely and righteously. King Beowulf even manages to stop the war with the Swedes by avenging King Hygelac. However, we still need Beowulf to finish one more Quest. Hence, a thief manages to find his way into the hoarding place of a Dragon and makes the smart decision of stealing a shiny gem studded goblet from let me remind you a Dragon! When the Dragon realizes that he is missing one cup from his gigantic heaps of gold, the Dragon gets furious and comes once again at the only logical conclusion: Murder! The Dragon decides rain fire on everything in his path until he finds the thief and his precious cup. Perfectly Rational. Hmm… I wonder why does this look familiar? *cough* The Hobbit *cough*

Eventually, the fire-breathing dragon starts tormenting, you guessed it, King Beowulf’s Kingdom. Beowulf takes twelve good men and starts investigating and finds the thief that caused this entire menace. Our set of heroes ask the thief to take them to the Dragon’s burrow. Now you would think that the smart way out is to give the dragon the thief and the goblet and make peace. Well, then you haven’t been paying attention, because of course not. The right thing to do is fight the Dragon. However, even Beowulf realizes that unlike the giants Beowulf can’t just wrestle the dragon and hence takes his armor and a shiny sword named Naegling with him to the burrow and challenges the Dragon.

Beowulf fights bravely even at his old age while his companions run for the hills after watching the fire-breathing dragon cause apparently they didn’t read the Quest description. The only man who stays is a young chap named Wiglaf. While fighting the dragon, Beowulf’s sword shatters cause swords are basically tissue paper in this universe. Wiglaf runs to aid Beowulf who is mildly inconvenienced by the Dragon’s fire. However, as soon as Wiglaf rushes in Beowulf get’s bit by the dragon on his neck. Now you would think that a gaping neck wound would make Beowulf succumb and die. Well of course not! As the fight rages on Wiglaf stabs the Dragon in his belly, the only place with no dragon scales. Beowulf finishes the battle by stabbing the dragon with a Deus ex machina knife and our two heroes triumph.

Now you would think that all the blood loss would kill Beowulf. Are you kidding me? Obviously no. Dragon venom, on the other hand, does start killing Beowulf. Now Beowulf being the benevolent, non-materialistic king that he is, asks Wiglaf to bring a piece of the treasure he just won as his last wish. Beowulf looks at the shiny gold he just won and makes Wiglaf the King since Beowulf in his fifty years of being an excellent King didn’t manage to get laid, somehow. Then he asks that they make him the most bad-ass funeral by making him a burrow and then our hero dies. The Geats then host a huge funeral pyre and bury the new found treasure with his body in the burrow.

The End

As you can see at the heart of it, Beowulf is a rather simple story about a man and some monster slaying. However, despite its simplicity it has inspires many stories. Hell, a character is named after Beowulf in even Frank Herbert’s Dune Cycle, the most sci-fi of the sci-fi novels of its time. Tolkien has very openly admitted his inspiration from the classic, and hence every story that followed Tolkien’s footsteps has been inspired by Beowulf to an extent. Say what you want about the character of Beowulf or the story, but you can’t deny that it inspired a legacy of work including most of the high fantasy we see today. Without its influences, Fantasy literature wouldn’t be what it is today, and for that, we have only one person to thank. The amazing Beowulf himself!

#book summary #beowulf #fantasy #norse #pagan #classic