Okay. So here's the thing. This was an assignment from my AP English Lit. course. I liked it, and spent the next two years polishing it up. I think it's finally ready for looking at. Lol. Beowulf is one of my favorite classics. Of course, given how many different versions there are out there (the movie really screwed things over), I'm going to go right out and say that I only consider the version translated by Seamus Haney as canon. That is the version that this piece is based off of.

Now, as to the premise behind this. The object of the assignment was to write a short version of the events in Beowulf from the perspective of another character. I, being the evil-obsessed git that I am, immediately chose Grendel's mother, the water-witch. I then tried to mimick the sentence patterns of the stanza-like story. It didn't turn out so hot, but it did keep things interesting. Consequently, my sentences end in very odd spots. Sorry about that.

DISCLAIMER: I don't know who owns Beowulf, but it isn't me.


Grendel's Mother

By: Ceris Malfoy

It was the misery that drove her to it.

She, monster of the blood-soaked deep, who had
murdered countless, watched thousands led to the
slaughter, decedent of Cain, watched her only
heir as he breathed his last. Her only son, torn
and broken by some upstart mortal, bleeding to
death from wounds inflicted, and not even allowed
the mere dignity of dying whole.

She cursed this Beowulf, this murderer of the foul
sort: one who did not kill for food, but for sport. She
seethed in the desolate depths of these murky waters,
her sheer fury causing her to glow: the lake burned
like a torch in the night air. By morning-light her grief
had risen, drowning her fury in despair and anguish.
She had conceived Grendel in these waters, with
another such as her; together these decedents of Cain
banished by God. Grendel's father murdered by God's
favored long before her son drew first breath. Without
him her exile was bitter and lonely; until Grendel, her
beloved son, drove away the bitterness, the misery of
her cursed existence. So she raised him as best she
could. Rose him to despise those who carried God's love
while they were cursed to Hell on Earth for all Eternity.
Her pride for her son grew even as he himself did: Grendel
grew from boy to man, and she gloated as he took
vengeance on those man-creatures that dared build a
hall of light, and sing and rejoice to God, in her territory.
Her son became powerful and dangerous, and she feared
not for him, for what God-blessed man could harm one
such as her son?

He would go, and she would love him and miss him while
he was gone. And he would feast, and bring to her, his
only true companion, bodies fresh from the hunt. Their
souls she would consume, their flesh also, until this
Beowulf, this foul demon of God's, tore from her son his arm
and hand and claw also, and dared to mock her son's defeat
by hanging the arm on the rafters of the hall for all to see.
Her son came to her; beseeched her to make it right, and
she could do naught but thrash about and gnash her teeth
in fury. And so he died, flesh of her flesh, blood of her
blood, her son and heir, cursing to Hell both her and this
Beowulf in the same breath.

It was the misery that drove her out.

She hunted in the dark. Using long since denied skills,
senses, she moved; stealing back her son's arm, and
again was seized with an alost uncontainable fury. And
in her fury, she struck, before realising that she must
flee. And flee she did, dragging back with her the
man-creature that she had torn with her savage claws. She
stalked back to the safety of her moore: where water pours
from the rocks, then runs underground, where mists steam
like black clouds, and the grove of trees, growing up out of
her blood-stained lake are all covered with frozen spray, and
wind down with snake-like roots that reach as far as the water
and help keep it dark.

Once there she replaced her son and heir's arm, and kissed
his frozen lips; praying to the ancient devils to help her
avenge her son, and waited, knowing that her actions would
not go unchecked. And she hoped that it was this Beowulf
that came for her head, for she would show him what happened
to those who invoked the fury of a water-witch. Decendent of
Cain, hater of God, mother of Grendel, waited. Down there
in the blood-stained deep, she waited patiently for him. She
waited for Beowulf.

It was the misery that she would kill for.


Nice and open, just like I like it.

~Ceris