Who Was Grendel in Beowulf?
Heorot, the magnificent hall of the great Danish king Hrothgar, is being terrorized by the monster Grendel. Night after night, Grendel swoops in from the misty moors to slaughter Hrothgar’s thanes (warriors) where they lie sleeping on benches around the hall.
On the Hunt for Heorot
The hunt for Heorot was the starting point of my adventure with my friend and colleague Margaret Procter. Professor Kristian Kirstiansen of the University of Göteborg had urged me in an email to “go to Lejre and visit the place of Beowulf, it is marvelous, and the great halls have been found and excavated.”
How to Ferment a Shark and Why You Might Want To
Fermented shark (properly, hákarl) is a traditional Icelandic delicacy, generally washed down with a potato and caraway liquor called brennevín, aka Black Death. These days it’s mainly tourists who eat it, egged on by grinning Icelanders who can’t wait to see them gag. Anthony Bourdain famously called it “the single worst, most disgusting and terrible tasting thing” he’d ever eaten.
Who was Beowulf and was he real?
The story of Beowulf comes down to us in three written sources. The most famous is the epic poem Beowulf, written in Old English in (likely) the early tenth century. I’m fully prepared to argue over drinks that it’s the greatest poem in the history of English literature.
The Women of Beowulf
The saga literature of which Beowulf’s story is a part usually omits the names of women even though they seem to have exercised a considerable degree of ritual and political power in 6th century Scandinavia.
Where was Beowulf from? : A Scandinavian Adventure
Here’s my advice, and it’s free: Never agree to a major writing project while drinking Seabreezes in a bar with a crowd of Australians. That’s what I did and it consumed three years of my life.