Beowulf and Grendel
Classical Stories · No. 80 — The hall no one dared sleep in, and the hero who fought bare-handed.
- Classical Stories
- 30 min
- Ages 8–13
- 6 chapters
About this audiobook
King Hrothgar builds a magnificent mead-hall, Heorot, but its light and laughter draw the monster Grendel, who comes from the moors each night to raid the sleeping hall, until no one dares stay there and joy is gone from the kingdom. Across the sea, the young hero Beowulf hears of their sorrow and sails with his warriors to help a people not his own. Boasting that Grendel uses no weapons, Beowulf will use none either, and waits in the darkened hall. When Grendel bursts in, Beowulf seizes the monster in a grip no creature has ever escaped; they wrestle, the great hall shuddering, until Beowulf tears the monster's arm away and Grendel flees to die in the fens. The hall's joy returns — though the poem knows that one monster's mother, and one hero's last dragon, still wait in the years to come.
Why it's worth a listen
The oldest great poem in the English language: a golden hall haunted by a monster that comes in the night, a people who have lost all hope, and a hero from across the sea who chooses to face Grendel with no weapon at all, hand against claw in the dark. Beowulf is where English storytelling begins — thunderous, brave, and older than almost everything.
A question to keep
What makes someone cross the sea to fight another people's monster — and what does a hero owe to strangers?
Chapters
- The Golden Roof in the Wilderness
- The Shadow of the Moors
- The Call Across the Cold Sea
- The Boast in the Dark
- The Grip of Iron
- A Question to Keep