The story of Beowulf’s fights with Grendel and Grendel’s Mother would make a complete epic on their own. Having saved the Danes from Grendel and Grendel’s Mother, our hero’s work seems complete. Nevertheless, his life’s purpose is not accomplished until he fights the Fire Dragon.
Let’s take a look at that fight and then consider some of the bigger lessons at play.
PLOT SUMMARY
Exposition – The Background
Many years have passed since Beowulf defeated Grendel and Grendel’s Mother. After the death of his father, he becomes King of Sweden and rules for fifty peaceful years.
Inciting Incident – The Problem
All of that changes when one of his people breaks into the chamber of a sleeping dragon, aka the Fire Dragon, and steals a goblet from his vast treasures. The Fire Dragon awakens, prowls over the land, scorching the earth with his fiery breath, and seeks revenge.
Rising Action – The Buildup
Beowulf cannot let the Fire Dragon decimate his kingdom. Though he is an old man, he suits himself for battle all the while recalling the glory of his youth. His memory is like a mirror into the past and the future. He knows he is not as strong as he once was, but he also knows he must fight, come what may. He has a duty to protect his people.
And so he sets forth with his army. As he nears the Fire Dragon, Beowulf tells them all to stand back. This fight is his alone. Soon, however, he is nearly consumed by the flames. Too scared to step in and help, all but a warrior named Wiglaf, a kinsman of the king, abandon Beowulf in his hour of need.
Wiglaf cries out for them to return, yet his cries are met with silence. The Fire Dragon smolders on, and Wiglaf turns his attention to Beowulf, encouraging him to get back up and fight.
Climax – The Breaking Point
He does, just in time, too. The dragon breathes hot fire at Wiglaf, but Beowulf houses him under his iron shield. Rousing his strength, Beowulf strikes the Fire Dragon. His sword shivers to pieces from the force of his efforts. It turns out Beowulf is still the warrior of his youth.
But reeling in rage, the Fire Dragon rushes upon a defenseless Beowulf and sinks his teeth into his neck. Wiglaf, full of love for his king, drives his sword into the Fire Dragon. Beowulf does the same with a knife he had tucked away, and the Fire Dragon falls down dead.
Falling Action – The Unraveling
Sadly, Beowulf has been mortally wounded. He makes Wiglaf his heir and commands him to bring the Fire Dragon’s treasure—one last trophy—so he can look at it before he dies. Upon seeing it Beowulf thanks God for granting it to his people.
And so saying, Beowulf dies a hero.
Resolution – Long Live Beowulf!
Wiglaf laments Beowulf’s death and cries out in anguish, again rebuking the Geats for abandoning their king. He buries Beowulf with great ceremony in a mound on top of the Fire Dragon’s treasure, denying it to the other warriors because of their disloyalty. It turns out Beowulf’s life is the real treasure, so that is what they get. Or rather, that is what they squandered.
Though Beowulf has died, as all men must, his fame will live on through the minstrel’s song. Mightiest of warriors and most virtuous of Christians, his glory has at last become eternal.
PLOT ANALYSIS
This final fight in Beowulf feels worlds away from the earlier two, not least because the storylines are separated by more than fifty years and take place in different kingdoms across the sea from one another. That alone is enough to make Beowulf’s fight against the Fire Dragon feel oddly disjointed from the rest of the epic. What’s more, its tone feels as foreboding and bitter as the others’ feel exciting and uplifting.
In a sentence, Beowulf dies.
After I read his death scene with my students, I always pause to scan their faces. Whether they are wide-eyed with disbelief, downcast in disappointment, or busy re-reading to make sure they understood what really happened, they all seem to ask, “Why? Why did he have to die?”
I find myself asking the same question. It seems unfair that the mighty Beowulf dies for his people, especially after they abandon him. Their selfishness and disloyalty are so obviously wrong. They have not just broken some ancient Germanic code of loyalty, they have betrayed the code of righteousness imprinted on the human heart. In doing so, they have betrayed their human nature.
Remind you of anyone, or should I say any monster?
Therein lies the choice for Beowulf’s warriors. They can follow the path of Beowulf and glorify not only humanity but its Creator, or they can follow the path of Grendel, a descendent of Cain, who so distorted human nature that he became one of the world’s most infamous monsters.
Now I’m not saying the warriors are going to suddenly grow hairy arms and start eating people, but they have taken a dangerous first step in that direction. Luckily, they have Wiglaf to call them back and help them repent just as the apostles repented after abandoning Jesus during His passion and death.
But wait! Isn’t this part of the story about the Fire Dragon, not Grendel?
Let’s go back and review the Fire Dragon’s character description. We said he represents an even older evil dating back to the fall of the angels. He is a trickster, not merely taking pardonable vengeance on a thief but actually tempting the man to become a thief in the first place. The Fire Dragon wants an excuse to scorch the earth. He wants an excuse to kill Beowulf. And he wants an excuse to scatter Beowulf’s men and make more Grendels out of them. All the while, he also wants to trick people into thinking he was just fighting back.
No, he started the fight, but Beowulf finishes it. The rest is up to his men—and us.
Image from Siegfried, the Hero of the North, and Beowulf, the Hero of the Anglo-Saxons (1900)