Candi Comics Forums

UncleFizzmo wrote:4 years ago
I read both Grendel and Beowulf and was under the impression that Grendle and his mother were basically retarded bears.

Hi Dad. :-)

From Neil Gaiman's introduction to his story, `Bay Wolf';

And there was that man Steve Jones again. "I want you
to write one of your story poems for me. It needs to be
a detective story, set in the near future. Maybe you
could use the Larry Talbot character from `Only the End
of the World Again.'"

It happened that I had just finished co-writing a screen
adaptations of `Beowulf,' the old English narrative poem,
and was mildly surprised by the number of people who,
mishearing me, seemed to think I had just written an
episode of `Baywatch.' So I began retelling `Beowulf'
as a futuristic episode of `Baywatch' for an anthology
of detective stories. It seemed to be the only sensible
thing to do.

Look, I don't give you grief over where you get *your*
ideas from.

His screenplay was for the CGI version, the one with Angelina
Jolie as Grendel's mom. Maybe you've seen it? Not bad. Not
great, but not bad.

Well, I got my own bad idea, partly from the movie, partly from
this track;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F21aifX0lZY
[yes, obnoxious dubstep again]

I think it's the creepy synthetic child-voice chanting that got
me started -- reminds me of that eerie hallucination scene from
`Akira' [which we've both seen, back a Bob and Barb's farmhouse]
with the menacing giant toys, especially the teddy-bear that
smashed furniture and bled milk.

That and all the roars made me think of Grendel. But it's not so
much the wookie-rage that I found troubling, more the hair-thin
sample of a *giggle* or high-pitched sob -- or possibly a yelp --
that really got to me.

And so the image of some monstrous child deprived of his
teddy-bear got stuck in my head, and now it won't go away.

So I think I'll have to retell the `Beowulf' story as a comic,
in the style of a Calvin and Hobbes `Spaceman Spiff' fantasy
sequence. No words, just pictures. The only adults in the
story would be King Hrothgar and Grendel's mother.

I think I'll title it `The Neighbours'.

We open with Beowulf Bob [aka Calvin] in his mighty Viking
vessel, reaching the shores of Hrothgar's kingdom. The
figurehead of his ship is, of course, not a bad likeness of
Hobbes. It's the King's birthday, and they've come bearing
gifts [but don't worry, they're Geats not Greeks].

Much singing and dancing and drinking ensues -- and noise, lots
of noise, which Grendel can't stand. But it's a birthday party,
what else can you expect?

After much gritting of teeth and covering of ears, wincing on
every drumbeat, Grendel finally loses it and gallops off to the
mead hall, teddy-bear in mouth [the same way cats carry their
kittens].

Just as they're bringing out the cake, Grendel pounds on the
door, breaks it open, roars -- and inadvertently blows out the
candles.

Everyone stops what they're doing, and stares.

Grendel proceeds to stumble around grumbling, covers his ears,
grumbles some more, swats the drumsticks out of a bard's hands
in passing, and generally makes it known that he's miserable and
really, really needs to get some sleep.

That is, until Beowulf Bob marches over and starts giving him
shit, especially about blowing out the King's candles; grabs his
paw, drags him over to the table, forcibly puts a lit stick from
the fireplace in his hand, and points at the cake [thin wisps of
smoke still rising from a few wicks].

Grendel looks at the stick, at Beowulf Bob, at the candles, then
notices his fur's on fire and freaks out.

This doesn't improve matters, and his frantic running around
yelling only fans the flames, until he notices a bucket of mead
and puts himself out.

But by then everyone's got their swords out. There's a fight.
Grendel makes it out the door in one piece, but realizes he's
dropped his teddy-bear and tries to get back in.

They slam the door on his arm.

At this point, burnt, bruised, missing his teddy-bear and his arm
below the elbow, Grendel has to make a [lopsided] run for it.

In the stream running through their cave, Grendel washes his
stump and tries to rest, tormented by the thought of his lost
teddy-bear -- at first just a thought balloon of the teddy-bear
with no Grendel in the picture, then a silhouette of Beowulf Bob
holding it aloft, skewered on his sword, and finally, its head,
mounted as a trophy on a wall.

Children can be awfully cruel.

[Burnt, bruised, missing half his arm, and the *teddy-bear* is
his main concern? Yes. Tough son of a bitch, isn't he?]

We see Grendel curled up tightly, knees up against his shoulders,
his remaining hand in a death-grip around his head, clearly not
getting any rest at all... until another paw, bigger than his,
reaches down and pets him, gives him a little scratch behind the
ears, and he's finally able to calm down.

The unseen figure pulls a blanket up over him. He's already
asleep.



Later, at Hrothgar's, the King thanks Beowulf for ridding his
kingdom that vile beast, and offers him the teddy-bear [intact]
as a gift, to take with him. Beowulf considers, and accepts.

Okay men, let's shove off! [still no words, just images]

On the beach, while Beowulf and company are literally shoving
their ship off the beach back into the water, they begin to hear
drumbeats. And chanting. Coming from the forest.

When they look that way, there are red eyes staring back from
the underbrush. Lots of eyes. But you don't see their owners.

Oh ee-we, oh-ee hee-we, oh. [Thump]
Oh ee-we, oh-ee hee-we, oh. [Thump]
Oh ee-we, oh-ee hee-we, oh. [Thump]
Oh ee-we, oh-ee hee-we, oh! [THUMP!]

[Translation; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F21aifX0lZY&t=44s
Look, I don't give you grief over where you get *your* ideas from...]

There's just a whole mess o' grendels in them woods, a-chantin'
and a-poundin' the butts of their spears on the ground, all in
unison [Neanderthal vintage, stone heads, heavy shafts, not meant
for throwing]. From the looks of things, singing and drumming
have a *completely* different meaning, for them.

Front and center is Grendel, without a spear, but with a hybrid
peg-leg / hook over his stump [like a boat hook], pounding and
chanting, and grinning from ear to ear -- and staring right at
Beowulf Bob. He's really got way too many teeth.

Now it's Beowulf Bob's turn to wince. On each drumbeat.

A clawed hand taps him on the shoulder, and he turns. It's Mom,
of course, sitting right behind him. Sitting on the ground,
she's about twice his height, and wants that teddy-bear back.

He complies, in a hurry, and skulks off out of kicking distance.

Before all hell breaks loose, the King interjects. Clearly
there's been some terrible misunderstanding. He invites them
all to join him and his subjects in the mead hall [no singing or
drumming this time, promise], and they can all settle this in a,
umm, hopefully nonviolent, uh... Care for some wine?

She sniffs the mouth of the bottle, but it smells sharp and
unpleasant to her. They don't go for fruit at all, let alone
rotten [fermented] fruit. Thanks, but the return of the
teddy-bear will suffice. And please keep the noise down.
Toodle-oo.

Grendel does notice the corks, though, and tries sticking them
in his ears. They work.

And with that, they wander off into the woods, never to be seen
again.

Beowulf Bob shoves off too, probably to be seen again, but he'll
try be a little quieter about it next time.


Definitely a divorce story. Oh well.



Love,
Patrick.
--
The first sign of maturity is the discovery that the volume knob
also turns to the left.

> Here's [a friend]'s reaction to your Beowulf fantasy. Much like my own. It's
> truly weird, but charming, and well-writ.

I kind of wonder what [your friend]'s literary scholar friends
would think of it, if he decides to send it.

The music [if you can call it that] doesn't necessarily have to
make sense. It's utterly savage, and childlike, and reminded me
of a couple other things. That's about all there is to that.

I'd also seen an adaptation of `Beowulf' recently, so Grendel
was the first monster that came to mind. If I'd seen `Star Wars'
again, I'd probably think of Chewbacca instead. And if I'd seen
a *better* adaptation of `Beowulf', I might not feel any need to
do my own [the one Neil Gaiman co-wrote the script for was a bit,
uh... Well, it had some nice touches anyway].

`Beowulf & Grendel', if you can find it, *is* a much better
adaptation, btw. Just saw that one today.

Also, there's some debate around the depiction of Grendel and
his mother, due to the ambiguity of an Old English word used to
describe both them *and* Beowulf.


From; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grendel

Other scholars such as Kuhn (1979) have questioned a
monstrous description, stating:

There are five disputed instances of āglǣca [three of
which are in Beowulf] 649, 1269, 1512...In the first...
the referent can be either Beowulf or Grendel. If the
poet and his audience felt the word to have two meanings,
'monster,' and 'hero,' the ambiguity would be troublesome;
but if by āglǣca they understood a 'fighter,' the
ambiguity would be of little consequence, for battle was
destined for both Beowulf and Grendel and both were
fierce fighters (216–7).

O'Keefe has suggested that Grendel resembles a Berserker,
because of numerous associations that seem to point to this
possibility.

...And it was traditional for berserkers to go into a fight
wearing the skins of bears or wolves [see attached], animals
associated with Odin. But with the spread of Christianity,
berserking was kind of going out of style, which would have
made them members of a dying breed.


From; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker

In 1015, Jarl Eiríkr Hákonarson of Norway outlawed
berserkers. Grágás, the medieval Icelandic law code,
sentenced berserker warriors to outlawry. By the 12th
century, organised berserker war-bands had disappeared.

[...]

Jonathan Shay makes an explicit connection between the
berserker rage of soldiers and the hyperarousal of
post-traumatic stress disorder. In Achilles in Vietnam
he writes:

If a soldier survives the berserk state, it imparts
emotional deadness and vulnerability to explosive rage
to his psychology and permanent hyperarousal to his
physiology — hallmarks of post-traumatic stress disorder
in combat veterans. My clinical experience with Vietnam
combat veterans prompts me to place the berserk state at
the heart of their most severe psychological and
psychophysiological injuries.

From; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grendel%27s_mother

Kuhn concluded that, "Grendel's mother was an 'aglæc-wif',
'a female warrior' [...] there is no more reason to introduce
the idea of monstrosity or of misery here than there is in
line 1519 where she is called merewif, defined simply as
'water-woman', 'woman of the mere.'"

E.G. Stanley (Emeritus Professor of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford
University) added to the debate by critiquing both Klaeber
and Gillam, stating:

Grendel is described as an æglæca, a word which we do not
understand. [...] As we assemble the many uses including
compounds [...] it becomes clear that it is not
pejorative in force. We must not follow Klaeber's
distinction of 'wretch, monster, demon, fiend' for
Beowulf's enemies, and 'warrior, hero' for Beowulf
himself; and we must not abuse Grendel's mother when she
is called aglæcwif by translating the word as Klaeber
does, 'wretch,' or 'monster, of a woman.' We must never
forget that she is called there ides aglæcwif (1259) and
ides, 'lady,' is not a term of abuse [...] the poet does
not speak of his monsters abusively.

Here's one you'll probably recognize, and like;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sDc0_SKG3Y

>
> Fourth of July today, with lots of noisy fireworks tonight. I'll have to look
> for some corks for my ears.

;-)


>
> love, [Dad]

Thanks, you too,
Patrick.
--
Nobody ever forgets where he buried the hatchet.
-- Kin Hubbard