One of the most difficult and baffling puzzles posed by the story of Grendel and his enmity with the Danes in Beowulf is perhaps that which refers to the extreme difficulties experienced by the Danes in disposing of the monster. The strength and size of Grendel together with his supposed invulnerability to swords and his habit of striking at night under the cover of darkness account partially for the helplessness of the Danes in dealing with their enemy. These explanations, however, cannot in any way be considered as fully satisfactory or even approach the challenge of wholly accounting for the nature of the problem. The idea that a relatively sophisticated society of warriors, such as the tribe of Hrothgar, could find no solution to the nightly ravages of Grendel and endured his outrages for nearly twelve years suggests that an investigation is required in order to clarify the precise nature of the Danes' failure to get rid of the monster. Beowulf's success in his man-to-man wrestling match with Grendel clearly points out the fact that Grendel was in no way invincible and that both his strength and courage had well defined limits. Why was it then that the Danes could not put together a large enough army to confront and defeat the monster? Surely the lack of cour age and fighting power could not have been a factor in a society of individuals who made their living as pirates and pillagers accustomed to face and defeat fierce enemies both at home and abroad. The very regularity of Grendel's behavior in his nightly ambushes of Heorot Hall hints at the fact that even if the monster was indeed exceedingly strong, a cunning counter-ambush could have been prepared by Hrothgar's troops to imprison and destroy the enemy. Neither the powers of strength and martial prowess nor the treacherous stratagems of war could possibly have been lacking or unknown to Hrothgar and his men. That in spite of their knowledge of war and the tricks of fighting the Danes failed for twelve years to stop the monster and had to be in the end shamefully rescued by a foreigner is indeed strong evidence of the fact that the figure of Grendel and the problem that is posed for the seemingly defenseless Danes embody a mysterious and symbolic significance which it is the purpose of this study to help elucidate.

Studies of the nature and character of Grendel often point out the idea that in spite of his undeniably human characteristics Grendel can be seen as a symbol of evil in general, possessing all the attributes of the devil as they were perceived by Christians in the early Middle Ages. The references in the text to Grendel as a descendant of Cain (Il. 107, 1261) have also attracted the attention of scholars and helped in the characterization of the monster as a destructive force connected to the concept of radical evil in the Judeo-Christian tradition. [All textual references in this study refer to the text of Beowulf in Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, ed. Fr. Klaeber (Lexington, Mass., 1950).] In his character as a supernatural, demonic force, it is perhaps simple to understand the enormous power of Grendel over the society of the Danes. The reason why the Danes are deserving of and vulnerable to the attacks of the devil is, on the other hand, a different question. The Beowulf poet seems to suggest that indeed the Danes had themselves made their society open to the attacks of the devil through their own heathen way of life and their worship of demonic forces:

Hwilum hie geheton æt hærgtrafum
wigweorþunga, wordum bædon,
þæt him gastbona geoce gefremede
wið þeodþreaum. Swylc wæs þeaw hyra,
hæþenra hyht; helle gemundon
in modsefan, Metod hie ne cuþon,
dæda Demend, ne wiston hie Drihten God,
ne hie hum heofena Helm herian ne cuþon,
wuldres Waldend.
(Beowulf: 175-183)

Sometimes they offered at heathen temples
sacrifices to idols, they vowed words
that the soul-slayer would help them
against distress. Such was their custom,
the hope of heathens. Full of hell
in their spirits, they did not recognize the Ruler,
the Judge of deeds; they did not know the Lord God,
nor indeed did they praise the Protector of Heaven,
the Lord of glory.

Therefore, according to the Beowulf poet, the presence and ravages of Grendel among the Danes appear to be a phenomenon directly related to the behavior and character of the Danes themselves. Elsewhere I have argued that indeed Grendel appears to be himself a Dane sent into exile for mysterious reasons by either Hrothgar or his predecessors. Whatever the literal identity of Grendel, however, in his role as an evil spirit with a mission to torture and punish Hrothgar and his people, Grendel seems indeed a sort of manifestation of a divine decree against the way of life of the Danes. Both the character and behavior of Grendel appear in some sense to mirror and reflect the immoral essence of the character of the Danes whom he so viciously victimizes.

The idea that the Danes, as individuals and as a tribe, suffer from severe moral shortcomings which make them deserving of the curse of Grendel is well supported by the internal, textual evidence in the poem. The criticism of the Danes seems in fact a very understandable impulse on the part of a Christian, Anglo-Saxon poet interested in condemning the way of life of the barbarian Danish tribes who not only adhered to a semi-pagan ideology and lifestyle but who were also the proverbial enemies of the newly-Christianized and relatively more civilized groups inhabiting the English islands at the time when the Beowulf poet was composing his epic. The creation of Grendel and his characterization as the very embodiment and epitome of evil appears to have as much to do with the condemnation of un-Christian principles and ways of life in general as with the criticism of the Danish people in particular on the grounds of their failure to adopt a more civilized and Christian way of life.

The vices of intemperance in the consumption of alcoholic beverages and the drunken, brutish, destructive, and often criminal behavior associated with alcoholism appear to stand foremost in the mind of the poet in the articulation of his criticism of the Danish people. Unferth, Hrothgar's ineffectual champion, is the particular figure in the story which the poet seems to have chosen to represent the essence of the moral problems plaguing the Danes and the consequences of those problems in rendering even the greatest of the Danish warriors into boastful but useless defenders of the kingdom against the threat of Grendel. In his response to Unferth's challenges during the party preceding Beowulf's confrontation with Grendel, Beowulf accuses Unferth of being 'beore druncen' (l. 531; 'drunk with beer') and also notices the fact that the reputation of the Danish champion is tarnished by the crime of fratricide:

… ðu þinum broðrum te banan wurde,
heafodmægum; þæs bu in helle scealt
werhðo dreogan …
(Beowulf: 587-589)

you became your brother's slayer,
your close relative; therefore you shall in hell
suffer damnation.

The faults that Beowulf sees in Unferth appear to be part of a larger problem associated with the character and behavior of the Danes in general. As Geoffrey Hughes suggests [in English Studies, Vol. 58 (1977)], it appears that 'something is rotten in this state of Denmark.' The situation that the poet seems to consider as representative of the essence and consequences of that problem is the very one embodied in the scenes depicting celebrations in the beer-hall. In general, after the warriors have become blind-drunk during such celebrations, they seem to forget the distinction between friends and enemies and are very apt to commit the worst atrocities, including, as in the case of Unferth, the slaying of one's own relatives. Such a situation appears to stand behind the infamous Finnsburg episode, the story told by the minstrel in Beowulf recounting the tragic fight that broke out between Danes and Frisians during a feast and which ended with the slaying of the Danish king Hnaef and his nephew, along with many other men. Excessive drinking turned the initially friendly gathering of Danes and Frisians into what the poet characterizes as 'morþorbealo maga' (line 1079; 'the slaughter of kinsmen'). It is perhaps interesting to note that in another work—Shakespeare's Hamlet—similar to Beowulf in the fact of its being the product of a Christian, English author writing about the Danes of the early Middle Ages, the attitudes presented concerning the character and behavior of the Danish people are also similar to those in the Old English epic. In Hamlet we not only find a character, Claudius, who, like Unferth, is guilty of both intemperance in drinking and fratricide but we also hear from Hamlet's own mouth a clear statement of the reputation of drunkards enjoyed by the Danes among other peoples. After noting that Claudius plans to spend the night drinking and carousing, Hamlet tells Horatio:

But to my mind, though I am native here
and to the manner born, it is a custom
more honored in the breach than the observance.
This heavy-headed revel east and west
makes us traduced and taxed or" other nations.
They clepe us drunkards and with swinish phrase
soil our addition, and indeed it takes
from our achievements, though performed at height,
the pith and marrow of our attribute.
(Hamlet 1. iv: 14-22)

The image of the monstrous Grendel feasting to his heart's content on the bodies of the Danes in the midst of Heorot Hall acquires a larger significance when juxtaposed with the notion of the Danes' intemperance and the crimes generally committed in the beer-hall under the influence of a few too many cups of mead. The idea that for twelve years starting right after the construction of Heorot Hall, night after night an invisible monster visits the beer-hall and mutilates and devours thirty of Hrothgar's warriors begins to appear under this perspective more than as a literal explanation of the disaster, as a figurative account of the devastations caused by the warriors' own drunkenness and brutish violence, Grendel—a monster who because of his voracious appetite and his links to the figure of Cain stands in the story as an unequivocal symbol of intemperance and fratricide—needs therefore to be interpreted as a mirror image and symbolic representation of the vices and flaws in the character of the Danes themselves, vices which indeed are very costly to the Danish society and whose effects could be compared to those of a monster revaging the country. [John] Leyerle correctly notes [in University of Toronto Quarterly, Vol. 37 (1967)] that "in Beowulf monsters are closely associated with the slaying of friends and kinsmen. They function in part as an outward objectification and sign of a society beset by internecine slaughter between friend and kin."

The elusiveness of Grendel, his enormous strength, his seeming invulnerability to weapons, the idea that he attacks at night and completely unseen by either victims or survivors, and the fact of his virtually complete dominance of the Danes are facets of the monster's characterization which make perfect sense when considered from the perspective that Grendel is a symbolic rather than a literal monster in the epic. Indeed it is quite impossible for the baffled Danes to capture and destroy a monster who only manifests itself after the warriors have fallen victim to the effects of alcohol and who proceeds to quickly conceal itself within each and every one of the revelers once the effects of the drink have dissipated. Grendel is a highly elusive 'evil spirit' who is an integral part of the character and personality of the Danes themselves. As [James W.] Earl points out [in Thought, Vol. 57 (1982)], Beowulf is characterized by a "pervasive language of spiritual warfare, in which the enemy has been internalized and the battlefield is the soul." The problem which the Danish people confront in the menace of Grendel is none other than that posed by their own brutish behavior—the monster is therefore primarily an internal enemy which can never be defeated with weapons and whose presence can only be exorcised through a process of self-examination and personal transformation which the Danes seem incapable of bringing about. [Stephen C] Bandy notes [in Neophilologus, Vol. 56 (1972)] that 'these benighted warriors of Hrothgar cannot learn. They are the slaves of their appetites. In Bandy's view, the Danes are victims of 'self-indulgence (and specifically drunkenness).'

Not surprisingly, it is only a foreigner, a non-Dane who holds the key to the solution of the Grendel problem. In the figure of Beowulf, the Danes find a man whose ability to defeat Grendel is grounded not so much on pure brute, physical force but on a miraculous sort of strength generated by certain gifts of moral character and which are characterized by the poet as God-given. In particular, the poet chooses to emphasize the idea that Beowulf is different from Unferth and from the rest of the Danes in the fact that he seems able to control both his violence and his consumption of alcohol. That degree of temperance and self-control are then characterized as being intimately related to his awesome physical strength:

Swa bealdode bearn Ecgðeowes,
guma guðum cuð, godum dædum,
dreah æfter dome; nealles druncne slog
heorðgeneatas; næs him hreoh sefa,
ac he mancynnes mæste cræfte
ginfæstan gife, þa him God sealde,
heold hildedeor.
(Beowulf 2177-2183)

Thus he showed himself brave, the son of Ecgtheow,
a man known in battles, of good deeds,
he acted according to discretion; when drinking he slew
no hearth-companions; his spirit was not violent,
but he of mankind the greatest strength,
a generous gift that God gave him,
held as a warrior.

Beowulf's ability to defeat Grendel is a function of his temperance and self-restraint. He is the only one in the entire company of Geats that accompanied him to the adventure in Denmark who manages to stay sober enough to perceive the entrance of Grendel into Heorot Hall. Bandy notes the 'remarkable wakefulness of Beowulf and further suggests that 'only the warrior who is first defeated by his own weakness can become the prey of Grendel and his evil.' Thus, as a man capable of temperance and self-restraint, Beowulf easily catches the fierce Grendel and holds him by the hand in a wonderful allergorical representation of precisely the manner in which the virtuous man holds in check his own violent passions and appetites. Although fated to succumb to the temptations posed later in the story by the fiery dragon, in the Grendel adventure Beowulf exhibits a degree of self-control and moral virtue which make it possible to see the Geatish hero as a sort of spiritual warrior engaged in a dangerous psychomachia or internal battle from which he emerges victorious as the vanquisher of the monstrous passions and violent tendencies which lurk inside his own heart and the hearts of all human beings. In this manner, Beowulf achieves a moral victory for himself and for the Danes which has to do with the importance in a human society of finding certain individuals of outstanding moral character who can serve as an example to others of the possibility of defeating the monster within. The joy of the Danes at the success of Beowulf in his encounter with Grendel can then be understood as a celebration of the opening of avenues of human character and behavior up till then unknown in Danish society. From this perspective it is then possible—though not entirely accurate—to compare the figure of Beowulf to that of Jesus Christ as a spiritual hero and redeemer of humanity. Such a comparison however should never be allowed to obscure the fact that for all its seeming virtue and goodness, the behavior of Beowulf, as a warrior and mercenary engaged in the pursuit of wealth and fame, remains highly problematic from a Christian point of view and determines the fact that the hero is doomed to tragedy and failure in the ultimate confrontation with the dragon, the symbol of all evil and the strongest of the satanic forces in the universe of Beowulf.