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Beowulf lines about weapons
What symbolism is used in beowulf
What symbolism is used in beowulf
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All throughout Scandinavian history and mythology, the prominence of weapons has not gone unnoticed by historians and scholars. The vikings, who were sea raiders, valued weaponry because of their positions as raiders. To the vikings, weapons were a part of everyday life, and every person had to have knowledge on how to use them. One could tell how much the Vikings valued their weapons by looking to the gods they worshipped and the stories they told. Tyr, Odin, and Thor were all gods of war; Beowulf, Sigurd, and Helgi were all great warriors. In fact, much of Scandinavian mythology and literature includes weapons all throughout its stories. To begin, the most notable weapon in the mythology of the Vikings belongs to the god of thunder and …show more content…
Epic poetry, such as Beowulf, possess many notable weapons throughout its lines. In Beowulf, the titular hero is given a sword, Hrunting, by Unferth, a Danish warrior, to defeat the mother of the monster, Grendel, and save King Hrothgar’s kingdom. Beowulf struck Grendel’s mother with Unferth’s mighty sword, but found that he could not harm her because no man-made weapon could kill her. Many scholars argue that Unferth intentionally gave Beowulf his sword, knowing that it would fail him in his fight against Grendel’s monstrous mother due to Unferth’s initial dislike of Beowulf. In his fight with Grendel’s mother, Beowulf discovers a gigantic sword with an engraved hilt created by giants. With the giant-made sword, Beowulf swings and hits Grendel’s mother in the neck, fatally wounding her. Beowulf finds Grendel’s body in the monster’s cave and decapitates him to bring his head as a prize. The blood of Grendel is so poisonous and acidic that it melts the blade of Beowulf’s new sword, leaving only the jeweled hilt. Beowulf returns victoriously and presents King Hrothgar the hilt of the sword he used to slay Grendel’s mother. Later in the poem when Beowulf is fifty years older and now King of the Geats, he is called on to slay a dragon that has been terrorizing his kingdom. Beowulf finds the dragon’s liar and fights it. Beowulf manages to cut the dragon with his sword, Nægling, only making …show more content…
The name Gram translates to “wrath” in Old Norse. The naming of Gram could be due to the fact that Fafnir had taken Otter’s wergild for himself instead of giving it to his father, Regin, causing Sigurd to use Gram for revenge. Regin and Sigurd originally struggled to create a sword strong enough to cut into Fafnir’s hide. In their first attempt at creating the sword, Sigurd hit Regin’s anvil with the sword, causing the weapon to shatter on contact. The second sword that Regin makes also shatters when it makes contact with the anvil. Sigurd asks Regin to make a sword using the sword fragments of his biological father, Sigmund. Regin forged the sword, Gram, which was so sharp that it “cut Regin’s anvil in two” (149). Sigurd buried a ditch and hid in it, waiting for Fafnir to pass over it, where he stabbed him in his stomach, killing him. Before aiding Sigurd in killing Fafnir, Gram belonged to the father of Sigurd, Sigmund. During the wedding of Sigmund’s sister, Signy, Odin, disguised himself as a strange man and stuck the sword into a tree in the center of the hall. He stated that whoever removes the sword from the tree will be given a gift. All the men attempt to take the sword out of the tree, but Sigmund is the only one to succeed. The sword brings out the greed in his enemies who covet the great sword. Sigmund’s sword is broken by Odin during his last battle. His wife took the pieces of the
The passage that I analyzed spans the action when Beowulf returns to the halls of Heorot after a harsh battle with Grendel’s mother. He returns to king Hrothgar in the great hall of Heorot to say that he has successfully completed his boast and killed Grendel’s mother. Beowulf states that it has been a very difficult underwater battle and that he has barely escaped with his life, “The fight would have been ended straightway if God had not guarded me” (Donaldson, 29). Beowulf mentions this due to the fact that the sword given to him by Unferth, called Hrunting, was powerless against Grendel’s Mother. Hrunting is useless against Grendel’s mother due to the fact that she has the same charm upon her as Grendel did, which is that no normal sword can pierce her skin. Then, by chance, Beowulf finds an ancient sword on a wall during the battle and uses it against the monster. This sword, which was crafted by the giants, is able to pierce the monster's skin and after one swing, the monster was cut in half. After using this ancient sword to murder the monster, Beowulf watches the blade of the sword melt away due to the toxicity of the monster's blood, until only the hilt was left. A hilt is the handle of a weapon or tool. The hilt is decorated with runic symbols and was given to King Hrothgar of the Danes as proof of Beowulf’s exploits. The King is also given the severed head of Grendel as further reassurance that their troubles at the great hall of Heorot is over.
Beowulf Authors often use events and things to symbolize stages in someone's life. Symbolism is the practice of representing things by means of symbols or of attributing meaning of significance to objects, events, or relationships. In the anonymous epic, Beowulf, Beowulf fights Grendel, the monsters of the ocean and Grendel's mother. Beowulf's battles with theses three evils symbolize the youth and adulthood of Beowulf's life.
“It was never [Beowulf’s] fortune to be helped in combat by the cutting edge of weapons made in iron. When he wielded a sword, no matter how blooded and hard-edged the blade his hand was too strong, the stroke he dealt would ruin it (lines 2677-2687)”
Beowulf is one of the most bravest legends. He has no fear! This man will go and fight whoever needs to be fought, with or without help. As soon as Grendel's mother came to get her son’s arm back, Beowulf immediately set out to go find and kill her. He went to the place where she lives and after he plunged into the water, Beowulf swam all the way down to her lair. After he reached the lair, “Beowulf got ready, / donned his war-gear, indifferent to death; / his mighty, hand-forged, fine-webbed mail / would soon meet with the menace underwater” (1442-1445). This task also seems to be a death sentence written all over it, but Beowulf looks death in the face, and goes after his mother. He knows that they are immortal, but right next to Grendel’s mother, is the only sword that can kill them. Beowulf is brave enough to grab that powerful sword, and kill both Grendel and his mother. Men today would not do that. Beowulf does not just stop at Grendel and his mother: he continues to fight more monsters to defend what is his. He then took a break and now decides to come home to Sweden. The son of Ecgtheow bids Denmark farewell, and has a moment with Hrothgar. Hrothgar says, “You are strong in body and mature in mind, / impressive in speech. If it should come to pass / that Hrethel’s descendent dies beneath a spear, / … and you are still alive, then I firmly believe / the seafaring Geats won’t find a
King Hrothgar had no solution to the conflict it was described that “All were endangered; young and old were hunted down by that dark death-shadow who lurked and swooped in the long nights on the misty moors” (Heaney 219). Grendel took over and established a kingdom. Grendel established a terrorizing fear in all the danes, until Beowulf comes along. Beowulf is immediately praised “There was no one else like him alive. In his day, he was the mightiest man on earth, high-born and powerful”, the Danes after seven years have found how to defeat this monster. (Heaney 222) Beowulf travels to another country and is one of kind, no one compares to his might and power. This proves how brave he is to travel to another country to defeat a monster that has had repeatedly attacked Danes. Beowulf emphasizes his bravery even more by declaring ““I hereby renounce sword and the shelter of the broad shield, the heavy war-board: hand-to-hand is how it will be, a life-and-death fight with the fiend”. This boastful attitude gives Beowulf the bravery to step up and fight using his barehands. The average warrior would use a shield and sword but, Beowulf is not average he shows that he is a hero and will fight Grendel as if he was invincible. Beowulf defeats Grendel by ripping of his arm and it signifies that he is not a fraud, but a man of his word. Beowulf pride gives himself an
This sword has a beautiful ornamented handle and a blade that is hinting that this is not an average sword. It is "an old sword made by giants, string of its edges, glory of warriors." Beowulf uses this sword to kill Grendel's mother by hitting her from above, thus breaking her collar-bones and slicing her into two halves. At this moment, the fire brightens and lits the cave from inside, "just as from the sky heaven's candle shines clear." Beowulf looks around and sees dead Grendel, so he immediately cuts monster's head off to present it to Hrothgar. As soon as he does that, the lake becomes stained with blood. The watchers ashore interprets this as a sign of Beowulf's death of the hands of Grendel's mother.
Then the Danes decide to go back to Herot and while they are sleeping, Grendel’s mother comes to attack them in order to even the score for the killing of her son. Then she leaves, taking the body parts of her son and Esher (which is one of Hrothgar's close friends) with her. Beowulf attempts to save him by entering the monster-filled lake, although the sword that he uses is useless against the skin of Grendel’s mother. As he continues to fight, he grows tired, but then notices that there is a huge sword on the wall of the battle hall where he was dragged to. The sword just so happened to be a magical one that was blessed by the giants that made it.
> In the introduction, Burton Raffel states, “The important > tools, in this poem, are weapons: proven swords and helmets > are handed down from father to son, like the vital > treasures they were. Swords have personalities, and names: > � (xi) > Beowulf uses Hrothgar’s helmet and armor to protect > him from serpents’ claws while he descends into the lake to > meet Grendel’s mother.
In both stories we see each King possess a famous sword which aids their defeats. King Arthur simply finds the "sword of the stone", called Excalibur. Excalibur is a symbol of King Arthur's sanctified kingship and the responsibly of his divine power. On the other hand, Unferth, one of the Danes, lent Beowulf his shining sword Hrunting. Beowulf used this sword, as foreshadowed in line 1496, to "gain glory" against Grendel's mother. Even though the sword itself failed him, he did not lose the battle and ended up killing her with a sword guarded by
For more than a millennium, literary excavators and scholars have been deciphering and intensively studying the epic Beowulf. The suspenseful and dramatic narrative takes place in Scandinavia where the Danes are experiencing the wrath of a monster known as Grendel. The titular eponymous King of the Geats gives the King Hrothgar necessary assistance to combat this ruthless and belligerent creature. After being killed, the hero Beowulf defeats Grendel’s mother in a watery underworld called her lair after she strikes Herot Hall. In the final scene, after serving five decades as Geatland’s generous and amiable king, he defeats the infamous dragon. Unfortunately, Beowulf suffers severe wounds from the battle. After briefly summarizing and analyzing
Thor and the Odyssey are famous today because they are examples of some of the most heroic warriors of their time. In Norse mythology and in the movie he is born to fight; their whole culture is based around fighting as well as drink...
Beowulf looked over on the wall next to them and saw a magnificent sword hanging on the wall adorned with beautiful carvings, it was blessed with magic. No normal man could ever have lifted that sword, but Beowulf was no normal being. He waited for the right moment to go and retrieve the sword, and when he found the perfect opportunity and he ran straight towards the wall. He pulled the sword down with great force and began running towards Grendel’s mother. Beowulf took in a deep breath as he leaned back and heaved the sword forward. Beowulf had sliced straight through Grendel’s mother’s scaly neck, blood began to pour everywhere and he heard her bones cracking as the sword passed through her.
Beowulf, the heroic figure in the poem, is known throughout the land as a courageous man who performs great deeds of valor. He is a Geat, who later becomes the king of the Geats. Beowulf’s strength seems to be a gift from God. As a noble and kind man, Beowulf comes to Herot to save them from God’s foe. Before Beowulf initiates battle with Grendal he exhibits a sense of fairness in not using a weapon against the monster.
In Beowulf the hero is in deadly combat with Grendel’s mother in the mere. He is at the point of being killed by the monster when suddenly God shows to him the presence of a special sword nearby on the wall. Beowulf seizes the giant weapon and kills the monster. Then:
Beowulf’s first accomplishment as an epic hero was his battle with Grendel. Grendel was a huge beast, a descendent of Cain, who ruthlessly murdered innocent Danes because he felt pity for himself. Upon hearing of the Dane’s problem, Beowulf set off to help the Danish without having been called upon. Even though Beowulf had men backing him, He drew battle with Grendel alone and without armor or weapons. Yet, Beowulf emerged victorious with the arm of Grendel as his trophy. Beowulf then went on to kill Grendel’s vengeful mother and a huge fire-breathing dragon who thought it had been done wrong by the Geats. Alas, the killing of the dragon would be Beowulf’s last great battle for the dragon took Beowulf’s life in the struggle for his own.