Beowulf #5: Fighting the Fire Dragon

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)

Beowulf #2: Characters

In order to understand any story, you have to spend time getting to know its characters. From their personal background and physical characteristics to their words and actions, every detail has meaning.

Beowulf is no different. Though the characters may at first seem like a motley cast of barbarians and monsters, each is highly complex, rich in symbolism, and teaches much about the mindset of the early Scandinavian and Germanic peoples they reflect.

Beowulf – “Mightiest yet Mildest of Men”

Let’s begin with our title hero. Most people have heard of Beowulf even if they skipped British Literature 101, not least because he’s fought his way across the big screen so many times. Stylized as a valiant barbarian from the lands of the Geats (aka Sweden), he is somewhat of a contradiction.

Ian Serraillier, my favorite Beowulf author, calls him the “mightiest yet mildest of men.” His “might” comes from his great strength and superior battle skills. Such would have been a prerequisite for a barbarian leader. (If you can’t win an arm-wrestling match against the whole clan, not to mention a giant, flesh-eating monster, take a hike!)

But Beowulf’s character is not just about flexing his muscles; he’s also “mild.” Serrailier uses this word to describe the barbarian hero’s spirituality, which blends the traditions of Germanic paganism with Christianity. Beowulf is both true to the Germanic code of loyalty, called comitatus, and the ideals of Christian virtue. He ultimately gives his life for his people in a very Christ-like way, but he does so at the point of a sword, fighting like a warrior should. We can think of him as a Christianized barbarian who still knows how to win a fight.  

Hrothgar – “Giver of Treasure”

King of the Danes, Hrothgar is also a Christian barbarian warrior. He is so glorious in battle and cares so much for his people that he gives them an abundance of gifts and builds them a great hall, called Heorot. He provides them with all the comforts of armed peace he can—that is until Grendel shows up and starts eating his men. Even Hrothgar, who had been so fearless in the past, finds himself unable to face Grendel. Instead, he slinks away in defeat every night before the monster’s feasting hour.

Poor Hrothgar! His hair turns gray, and his eyes lose their luster during the twelve years of Grendel’s attacks. It is only after Beowulf arrives at Heorot that Hrothgar gets his step back. Hrothgar is a good king to his people, always trying to give them his best. It’s just that his best is no match for Grendel and certainly nothing compared to what Beowulf has to offer.

Unferth – “A Grovelling Jealous Man”

In the character of Unferth, we learn that not all barbarians are good. He is Beowulf’s foil, or opposite, being as weak and selfish as Beowulf is strong and selfless. Nonetheless, he has an inflated opinion of himself and challenges Beowulf—but only in words! At the conclusion of his “fight” with Beowulf, Hrothgar dismisses him as a wimp. Actually in Serraillier’s version, he calls him “an envious, wayward man, unworthy of note,” which is much worse.

If not for the role he plays in attacking Beowulf’s reputation, he would have no part in the story. Still, his character is a good reminder of how important fame was to the barbarian people he represents. Beowulf is famous; Unferth is not. It is that which makes him most jealous. He does not seem to really care about being tougher than Beowulf. If he did, he would have faced Grendel. What he desires is unearned glory.

Grendel – “The Grim Monster”

At last we come to Grendel. To simply call him a monster is to misunderstand him. He is a descendant of Cain, as in the Cain who slew his brother Abel from the Bible. As punishment, God marked Cain with a sign of his sin and cast him out of his “clan.” Like Cain, Grendel is marked with sin. His “arms of hairy gorilla” and “red ferocious eyes” and “ravening jaws,” among other things, are signs of his evilness.  

No longer looking like a man, his oldest ancestor, Cain, was nonetheless created as one. That means their family line has gone against its human nature. It is that which makes him different from say, a lion, who might also attack and eat people. A lion would not be sinning to eat a person, but Grendel is. What’s more, he loves eating humans, and it’s not just because they taste good! He eats them out of vengeance. Like the sin he represents, he has an insatiable appetite. Put differently, he is beyond redemption and must be killed.

Grendel’s Mother – “The Tyrant Queen”

It turns out even Grendel has a mother who loves him—in her own distorted way, of course. Flesh and blood bind them together, so we can pretty much picture a female version of her son, complete with his massive, hairy size and strength. She, too, hates mankind, but her vendetta is more personal. By the time we meet her in the story, she wants payback for her son’s death, and she really wants to kill Beowulf.

When put in the context of motherhood, Grendel’s Mother is somewhat sympathetic, but that doesn’t change the fact that she is evil. She and Grendel lived together in an eerie lake, symbolic of Hell, over which she reigns supreme. Though her son may have been the one who killed so many humans at Heorot, she most certainly was an accomplice if not the instigator.

The Fire Dragon – “Twilight Foe”

Last but certainly not least of the monsters comes a fearsome, fire-breathing dragon that lives in Beowulf’s own kingdom of Sweden. If the idea of Grendel and Grendel’s mother harkens back to the fall of mankind, the Fire Dragon takes us back even farther to the fall of the angels. With his long coiled body, he looks like a serpent but with wings and legs, drawing an obvious connection to the devil.

And the similarities don’t stop there. His is the kind of evil that sleeps in the shadows, always hoping for a chance to trap an unsuspecting human into doing something foolish, aka sinning. He lures them with an ancient treasure tucked beneath a burial ground, reminding us that he is an instrument of death. The treasure proves too great a temptation for one of the Geats. He breaks in, wakens the sleeping dragon, and thus ignites a fiery rampage. Though Beowulf kills the Fire Dragon, he needs help doing so and dies in the end. This final monster is the strongest and most evil of all.

Wiglaf – “Close Kinsman of the King”

Enter Wiglaf. He alone stands by Beowulf to fight and defeat the Fire Dragon. They share many of the same qualities, perhaps partially because they are related. He, too, is a powerful warrior, though presumably not equals in their prime. More importantly, Wiglaf knows the value of loyalty and was prepared to give his life for Beowulf just as Beowulf was prepared to give his life for his people.

It is Wiglaf who shames the other warriors for abandoning Beowulf. It is he who obeys Beowulf’s dying wishes and builds his burial mound on the Fire Dragon’s treasure, refusing to take any of the spoils even for himself. Fittingly, he becomes the next king of Sweden.

Conclusion

That’s about all we can say about the characters without getting into the whole story. Although you can piece it together here, you will want to look at each of the subsequent plot analyses to get a fuller picture.

Please note the taglines for each character and quotations are derived from Beowulf the Warrior retold by Ian Serraillier.

Image Credit: Rockwell Kent, Beowulf, 1931, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum