But this view is blended or confused with another. Because of his ceaseless hostility to men, and hatred of their joy, his super-human size and strength, and his love of the dark, he approaches to a devil, though he is not yet a true devil in purpose. Real devilish qualities (deception and destruction of the soul), other than those which are undeveloped symbols, such as his hideousness and habitation in dark forsaken places, are hardly present. But he and his mother are actually called deofla, 1680; and Grendel is said when fleeing to hiding to make for deofla gedrœg. It should be noted that feond cannot be used in this question: it still means ‘enemy’ in Beowulf, and is for instance applicable to Beowulf and Wiglaf in relation to the dragon. Even feond on helle, 101, is not so clear as it seems (see below); though we may add wergan gastes, 133, an expression for ‘devil’ later extremely common, and actually applied in line 1747 to the Devil and tempter himself. Apart, however, from this expression little can be made of the use of gast, gœst. For one thing it is under grave suspicion in many places (both applied to Grendel and otherwise) of being a corruption of gœst, gest ‘stranger’; compare Grendel’s title cwealmcuma, 792 = wœlgœst, 1331, 1995. In any case it cannot be translated either by the modern ghost or spirit. Creature is probably the nearest we can now get. Where it is genuine it applies to Grendel probably in virtue of his relationship or similarity to bogies (scinnum ond scuccum), physical enough in form and power, but vaguely felt as belonging to a different order of being, one allied to the malevolent ‘ghosts’ of the dead. Fire is conceived as a gœst (1123).
This approximation of Grendel to a devil does not mean that there is any confusion as to his habitation. Grendel was a fleshly denizen of this world (until physically slain). On helle and helle (as in helle gast 1274) mean ‘hellish’, and are actually equivalent to the first elements in the compounds deaþscua, sceadugengea, helruna. (Thus the original genitive helle developed into the Middle English adjective helle, hellene ‘hellish’, applicable to ordinary men, such as usurers; and even feond on helle could be so used. Wyclif applies fend on helle to the friar walking in England as Grendel in Denmark.) But the symbolism of darkness is so fundamental that it is vain to look for any distinction between the þystru outside Hrothgar’s hall in which Grendel lurked, and the shadow of Death, or of hell after (or in) Death.
Thus in spite of shifting, actually in process (intricate, and as difficult as it is interesting and important to follow), Grendel remains primarily an ogre, a physical monster, whose main function is hostility to humanity (and its frail efforts at order and art upon earth). He is of the fifelcyn, a þyrs or eoten; in fact the eoten, for this ancient word is actually preserved in Old English only as applied to him. He is most frequently called simply a foe: feond, lað, sceaða, feorhgeniðla, laðgeteona, all words applicable to enemies of any kind. And though he, as ogre, has kinship with devils, and is doomed when slain to be numbered among the evil spirits, he is not when wrestling with Beowulf a materialized apparition of soul-destroying evil. It is thus true to say that Grendel is not yet a real mediaeval devil – except in so far as mediaeval bogies themselves had failed (as was often the case) to become real devils. But the distinction between a devilish ogre, and a devil revealing himself in ogre-form – between a monster, devouring the body and bringing temporal death, that is inhabited by an accursed spirit, and a spirit of evil aiming ultimately at the soul and bringing eternal death (even though he takes a form of visible horror, that may bring and suffer physical pain) – is a real and important one, even if both kinds are to be found before and after 1066. In Beowulf the weight is on the physical side: Grendel does not vanish into the pit when grappled. He must be slain by plain prowess, and thus is a real counterpart to the dragon in Beowulf’s history.
(Grendel’s mother is naturally described, when separately treated, in precisely similar terms: she is wif, ides, aglœc wif; and rising to the inhuman: merewif, brimwylf, grundwyrgen. Grendel’s title Godes andsaca has been studied in the text. Some titles have been omitted: for instance those referring to his outlawry, which are applicable in themselves to him by nature, but are of course also fitting either to a descendant of Cain, or to a devil: thus heorowearh, dœdhata, mearcstapa, angengea.)
(b) ‘Lof’ and ‘Dom’; ‘Hell’ and ‘Heofon’
Of pagan ‘belief’ we have little or nothing left in English. But the spirit survived. Thus the author of Beowulf grasped fully the idea of lof or dom, the noble pagan’s desire for the merited praise of the noble. For if this limited ‘immortality’ of renown naturally exists as a strong motive together with actual heathen practice and belief, it can also long outlive them. It is the natural residuum when the gods are destroyed, whether unbelief comes from within or from without. The prominence of the motive of lof in Beowulf – long ago pointed out by Earle – may be interpreted, then, as a sign that a pagan time was not far away from the poet, and perhaps also that the end of English paganism (at least among the noble classes for whom and by whom such traditions were preserved) was marked by a twilight period, similar to that observable later in Scandinavia. The gods faded or receded, and man was left to carry on his war unaided. His trust was in his own power and will, and his reward was the praise of his peers during his life and after his death.
At the beginning of the poem, at the end of the first section of the exordium, the note is struck: lofdœdum sceal in mœgþa gehwœre man geþeon. The last word of the poem is lofgeornost, the summit of the praise of the dead hero: that was indeed lastworda betst. For Beowulf had lived according to his own philosophy, which he explicitly avowed: ure œghwylc sceal ende gebidan worolde lifes; wyrce se ðe mote domes œr deaþe: þœt bið dryhtguman æfter selest, 1386 ff. The poet as commentator recurs again to this: swa sceal man don, þonne he æt guðe gegan þenceð longsumne lof: na ymb his lif cearað, 1534 ff.
Lof is ultimately and etymologically value, valuation, and so praise, as we say (itself derived from pretium). Dom is judgement, assessment, and in one branch just esteem, merited renown. The difference between these two is not in most passages important. Thus at the end of Widsith, which refers to the minstrel’s part in achieving for the noble and their deeds the prolonged life of fame, both are combined: it is said of the generous patron, lof se gewyrceð, hafað under heofonum heahfœstne dom. But the difference has an importance. For the words were not actually synonymous, nor entirely commensurable. In the Christian period the one, lof, flowed rather into the ideas of heaven and the heavenly choirs; the other, dom, into the ideas of the judgement of God, the particular and general judgements of the dead.
The change that occurs can be plainly observed in The Seafarer, especially if lines 66–80 of that poem are compared with Hrothgar’s giedd or sermon in Beowulf from 1755 onwards. There is a close resemblance between Seafarer 66–71 and Hrothgar’s words 1761–8, a part of his discourse that may certainly be ascribed to the original author of Beowulf, whatever revision or expansion the speech may otherwise have suffered. The Seafarer says:
ic gelyfe no
þœt him eorðwelan ece stondað.
Simle þreora sum þinga gehwylce
œr his tid[d]ege to tweon weorþeð:
adl oþþe yldo oþþe ecghete
fœgum fromweardum feorh oðþringeð.
Hrothgar says:
oft sona bið
þœt þec adl oððe ecg eafoþes getwœfeð,
oððe fyres feng, oððe flodes wylm,
oððe gripe meces, oððe gares fliht,