Disarming Monsters

As dinner draws to a close and the Danes make themselves scarce, Beowulf prepares to battle the monster Grendel by casting aside his weapons and taking off his armor.

This is a surprise to his fellow Geats, (GAY-OTTS) the tribesmen who had sailed with him (from present day Sweden) for this fateful encounter.

Don’t worry,’ Beowulf says in effect.  ‘I’m not going to fight him the way you think I am.’

Earlier that day, the Geat warriors lept from their longship and waded to the beach through Denmark’s cold surf.  They were challenged immediately by a sentry who stopped mid sentence at beholding Beowulf - the Bee-Wulf, a man with the size and strength of a bear.

Beowulf and his men are welcomed by the king, Hrothgar.  Denmark is the reigning superpower of the day, safe from the advance of any force on land or sea, a magnificence represented by their unrivaled mead hall, Heorot, the center of political and military life.

However, Denmark is stalked by an enemy more terrifying than a foreign army, a monster from within their own walls, Grendel, who in his dismal lair has long nursed a grudge compelling him to slaughter innocents 30 at a time.  The light, music, and laughter that spills into the night from Heorot galls him particularly.  From the beginning of his bloodthirsty spree, Heorot sits silent while Hrothgar despairs at his helplessness.

At more than 1200 years old, the poem BEOWULF  is a swashbuckling military epic, yet it contains a surprising insight on the monsters within our walls in this day and age, the active shooters.  The raiding and pillaging tribes of the Anglo-Saxon era knew something about violence, according to scholar Robin Bates, who in his book BETTER LIVING THROUGH BEOWULF shares their wisdom concerning the Grendels of our day, who nurse their grudges and attack our schools, synagogues, and shopping centers.  (BEOWULF also contains messages on despair and even politics, namely the guarding of a hoard plundered from a populace - subjects for another time.)

The night grows still.  Many of the Geat warriors, dulled by the food and spirits in Hrothgar’s extravagant welcome, start to snore.  Beowulf feigns sleep yet remains alert.

Grendel enters the mead hall.  Quickly he bolts down an unsuspecting Geat in a bloody, barely chewed mess.  Next, he reaches for Beowulf.

Beowulf captures Grendel’s claw in a fingers interlaced game-of-mercy grip which surprises him with its intensity of force and pain.  As Grendel tries to draw his arm back, Beowulf rises with him, turns, and brings his other arm over Grendel’s, sinking a powerful shoulder lock.  The first of Grendel’s earsplitting, in human screams reverberates within Heorot and across the Danish countryside.

The struggle is mighty, and at its margins as the two figures grapple furiously, splintering the furniture and buckling the walls, Great warriors in full armor stab ineffectually at Grendel.  However, this is anything but a fight.  From the very instant his claw is captured in Beowulf’s vise-like grip, Grendel is possessed by an absolutely alien sensation, fear.  He wants nothing to do with Beowulf.  All of his murderous intent has vanished, and he is merely trying to pull his arm free so he can rush back to cower in his lair.  He screams in self pity and terror, if not at the unbearable pain in his shoulder.

Grendel escapes only when Beowulf has completed uncoupling his shoulder joint, tearing apart all of the muscles, tendons, and ligaments one after another and twisting the bones through his skin.  Grendel runs off, trailing blood into the darkness.

As the sun rises, Grendel dies in lonesome misery in his lair, while back at Heorot the warriors gather to stare at an arm the size of a tree limb.  On one end are claws as long as knives; on the other is a gelatinous mass of mangled tissue.

I have a theory on the ultimate inspiration for BEOWULF.  One night 1200 years ago in Denmark, outside the house of an aspiring poet, a ripping thunderstorm brought down a huge tree branch.  ‘That looks like the claw of a monster,’ he - or she - thought, and its sheer mass and the fury of the thunder, wind, and rain suggested a struggle between unspeakably powerful forces.

The poet created a story of a monster and a hero, and as he tried it out on audiences at home, among friends, and then at the mead hall, the feedback helped him shape it into an epic depicting what his culture found terrifying and awesome.

Beowulf does not simply come rip Grendel’s arm off.  He also does not lay a hand on Unferth, a Danish warrior who speaks out of turn at dinner.  He actually handles the beery Unferth with words alone, to devastating effect.  Already the reader has witnessed Beowulf’s trust in God and his honor: he has come to Denmark to repay Hrothgar for shielding his father from enemies years before.

Therefore, it is no surprise that Beowulf’s defeat of Grendel is similarly sophisticated: he took the fight out of him first.  The fall in Grendel’s mental state, from murderous intentions, the gory satisfaction of the blood smeared walls Hrothgar describes, to abject fear, is his true defeat.  That’s his death, a greater crippling than the loss of an arm.  This would reflect the view of a warrior culture, for whom the greatest victory would be to see fear in the eyes of an enemy, which comes shortly before surrender or defeat.

Now, we must apply this lesson to battling the monsters of this day and age.  The murderous intent within Grendel was in the grudges he nursed in his dark and lonesome lair.  Whatever kind of fantastic beast he once was, it was the hatred and jealousy he allowed to consume him that transformed him into a monster.  Alone and unhappy, he attacked those behind the merriment he heard all around him.

Today, we must ‘disarm’ the monsters who would smear the walls with innocent blood, yet the state of our politics and law won’t allow us to tear the assault weapons from their hands.  Instead, we must focus on the other half of Beowulf’s battle, the greater victory, taking the fight out of them.  If we cannot prevent them from buying weapons, then we can stop them from nursing their grudges.

We take away their internet access.

Mounting evidence tells us a number of things: social media can have a destructive effect on some people, sparking and then intensifying feelings of loneliness and alienation.

These troubled souls then plunge deeply into dark and soul destroying content, worsening their views of themselves and the the world around them, and making violence seem like the only answer to these cruelties.

We know this to be true, based on investigations into shooters’ computer use - and interviews with those who did not turn their gun on themselves.

From Seamus Heaney’s translation:

"When it comes to fighting, I count myself as dangerous any day as Grendel.
So it won't be a cutting edge I'll wield

to mow him down, easily as I might.
He has no idea of the arts of war,
of shield or sword-play, although he does possess a wild strength. No weapons, therefore,
for either this night: unarmed he shall face me
if face me he dares. And may the Divine Lord
in His wisdom grant the glory of victory
to whichever side He sees fit."

I’m not going to fight him the way you think I am, Beowulf is saying.

“But the Lord was weaving a victory on His war-loom for the Weather-Geats.

Through the strength of one they all prevailed;
they would crush their enemy and come through

in triumph and gladness.”