beawolf

King Hrothgar, the ruler of the Danes, is

troubled by the rampages of a demon named
Grendel. Every night, Grendel attacks King
Hrothgar's wealthy mead-hall, Heorot,
killing Danish warriors and sometimes even
eating them. Hrothgar was a great warrior in
his time, but now he's an old king and can't
seem to protect his people. Fortunately, a
young Geat warrior named Beowulf travels
to Heorot Hall from his own lands overseas
to lend a helping hand literally.

After explaining that he owes Hrothgar a
favor because Hrothgar helped out his
father, Beowulf offers to fight Grendel
himself. King Hrothgar gratefully accepts
his offer. The next time Grendel attacks
Heorot Hall, Beowulf is waiting for him.
Choosing to fight Grendel in hand-to-hand
combat, Beowulf wrestles the demon into
submission and eventually tears off his arm
at the shoulder. Mortally wounded, Grendel
flees into the wilderness and dies. Beowulf,
Hrothgar, and their followers throw a wild
party to celebrate. Hrothgar also gives
Beowulf many presents and treasures to
reward him for his heroic defeat of the
demon.

Unfortunately, Grendel has an
overprotective mother who decides to
avenge her son. While all the warriors are
sleeping off the party, she attacks Heorot
Hall. But when the warriors wake up, she
panics and flees back to her lair, a cave
underneath a nearby lake.

Beowulf, his Geatish warriors, and some of
Hrothgar's Danish warriors track her there.
Beowulf dives into the lake and finds the
cave, where he takes on Grendel's mother in
another one-on-one battle. Seizing a nearby
sword from Grendel's mother's stash of
treasure, he slays her, even though her
poisonous demon blood melts the blade.
When Beowulf returns to the surface,
carrying the sword hilt and Grendel's
severed head, the Danish warriors have
given him up for dead, but his own Geatish
followers are still waiting patiently. When
everyone sees that Beowulf has survived this
second challenge, there's even more partying
and gift-giving.

Finally, the Geats take their leave of the
Danes; Beowulf says goodbye to King
Hrothgar and sails back to Geatland, where
he is a lord in the court of King Hygelac.
Eventually, Hygelac and all his relatives are
killed in different blood-feuds, and Beowulf
becomes the King of the Geats. Beowulf
reigns as king for fifty years, protecting the
Geats from all the other tribes around them,
especially the Swedes. He is an honorable
and heroic warrior-king, rewarding his loyal
thanes (warrior lords) and taking care of his
people.

But one day, Beowulf finally meets his
match: a dragon, woken by a thief stealing a
goblet, begins attacking the Geats, burning
villages and slaughtering people. Beowulf
takes a group of eleven trusty warriors, plus
the thief who knows where the dragon's lair
is, to the barrow for a final showdown with
the monster. When they see the dragon, all
but one of the warriors flee in terror. Only
one man, Wiglaf, remains at Beowulf's side.
With Wiglaf's help and encouragement,
Beowulf is able to defeat the dragon, but he
is mortally wounded in the process.

After Beowulf's death, the Geats build an
enormous funeral pyre for him, heaped with
treasures. Once the pyre has burned down,
they spend ten days building an enormous
barrow (a large mound of earth filled with
treasure) as a monument to their lost king.

In Denmark, A.D. 507, the realm of King
Hrothgar is threatened by the tormented
demon Grendel that attacks the locals in
their celebrations. The Danish king offers a
reward for the death of the creature,
attracting to Herot the brave Geat warrior
Beowulf that seeks for glory. After a fierce
battle, Beowulf defeats the demon and after
receiving an old relic as reward, he finds his
men slaughtered in the party saloon of the
castle. King Hrothgar advises that the
Grendel's mother was the responsible for the
bloodshed and Beowulf chases her in the
lake where she lives. The creature takes the
form of a seductive woman and seduces
Beowulf with a promise of becoming an
invincible and wealthy king if he makes love
to her and gives his golden relic to her.
Years later, King Beowulf feels the
aftermath of his sin.

Summary
The mighty king of all primeval England,
Uther Pendragon, lusts after Igrayne, wife of
the Duke of Cornwall. Uther invites the
duke and his wife to his castle and
propositions her. She refuses him, tells her
husband, and the duke and Igrayne slip out
of Uther's castle by night and flee. On the
advice of his knights, the king, sick with lust
and rage, marches on the Duke of Cornwall.
While the siege is still on, Merlin the
magician arranges a pact with King Uther.
He will transform Uther into the image of
the duke and get him to bed with lgrayne.
The condition is that the child who will be
conceived on this night shall go to Merlin
for rearing as he sees fit.
The child is conceived hours after the real
duke's death, and King Uther later marries
the widow. On the same morning, by King
Uther's request, two fellow kings Lot and
Nantres marry two of Uther's daughters,
and the third daughter, Morgan le Fay, is put
to school in a nunnery and becomes a
necromancer; she later marries King Uriens.
The child is born and delivered unchristened
to Merlin.
Two years pass. In this time Uther's enemies
strike at him repeatedly, killing many of his
people. Uther falls sick, and in the hour of
his death, Merlin gets him to proclaim his
son Arthur the future king of England.
After Uther's death, the kingdom is in
jeopardy, every baron struggling to seize
control. Merlin goes to the Archbishop of
Canterbury, tells him a miracle is coming
soon and advises him to assemble all the
lords of the kingdom at Christmas. They
come and find a sword lodged in a stone,
and on it the legend: Whoso pulleth out this
sword from this stone and anvil is duly born
King of all England. No man can budge it,
and to keep them in hand, the archbishop
arranges a New Year's Day tournament. To
this tournament a knight of low station, Sir
Ector, comes with his son Kay and the child
Merlin placed in his care, Arthur.
On the way, Kay loses his sword and sends
Arthur back. Arthur brings the sword from
the stone. When they hear of this, the barons
are outraged at the thought of being ruled by
a boy. They postpone their decision on
Arthur's kingship again and again, but at last
accept it, at the urging of the commons, and
Arthur is crowned. He redistributes the land,
redresses old wrongs, and extends his realm,
in a few years bringing all the North,
Scotland, and Wales to submission.
Arthur has himself crowned in Wales and
the mightiest kings of his time come to the
coronation, among them King Lot, King
Nantres, and King Uriens, the husbands of
Uther's three daughters. Arthur is pleased,
thinking they come from love and respect;
but the gifts he sends them are scornfully
refused: they have come to fight him. With
500 men, Arthur withdraws to a tower, and
Merlin goes to talk with the hostile kings.
He tells them of Arthur's lineage and
arranges a parley, then vanishes from their
midst and returns to Arthur. He tells Arthur
to answer his enemies boldly, for destiny is
on his side.
The parley fails, war begins, and with the
help of his magical sword Excalibur,
gleaming in his enemies' eyes like twenty
torches, Arthur routs his enemies. He returns
to London, and there Merlin gives him a
three-part plan of war. First he advises that
Arthur get help from two kings over the sea,
Ban and Bors, and that Arthur promise in
return to help with their wars. Second, he
advises a midnight attack on the greatest and
bravest of Arthur's enemies, King Lot.
Third, lie advises that the armies of Ban and
Bors be moved secretly into the English
forest of Bedgraine. This Merlin himself
accomplishes. Arthur and his army fight the
hostile kings-grown to a league of eleven
and bring the battle to a draw. When the
enemy is weakened and weary, the fresh
armies of Ban and Bors descend.
King Lot and his allies are badly beaten and
might be destroyed, but Merlin tells Arthur
to quit or Fortune will turn on him. The
hostile armies will not trouble him now for
three years. Arthur and his allies stop, joyful
over their success, and Merlin sees that all
that happened in the battle is written down.
An interlude of peace follows; a seemingly
irrational joke by Merlin, then the
appearance of an earl's daughter on whom
Arthur gets a child who will become, later, a
Round Table knight.
Now Arthur, Ban, and Bors go to help King
Lodegreaunce with his war and win it for
him. There Arthur first sees Guinevere and
immediately loves her. Ban and Bors return
home, and so do the eleven hostile kings,
who find their lands overrun with Saracens
and other bandits lands Arthur would
have protected for them, they realize, if they
had not struggled against him. They drive
out the Saracens and begin to plot
vengeance for the battle of Bedgraine.
Arthur goes to Carlyon, where the wife of
King Lot and his four sons Gawain,
Gaheris, Aggravain, and Gareth come to
visit, actually to spy. Unaware that Lot's
wife is his own sister, Arthur gets a child on
her Mordred. That night Arthur dreams
that his land is overrun by gryphons and
serpents which burn the land and slay the
people; he fights them in his dream and,
with great difficulty, slays them. To drive
the nightmare out of his mind, Arthur goes
hunting. He chases a hart until his horse falls
dead. A yeoman brings another horse, but
Arthur sits, lost in thought, near a fountain.
A mysterious beast comes, drinks, and
moves on; immediately afterward a strange
knight comes Sir Pellanor, hunter of the
Questing Beast. Arthur offers to take up the
quest, but Sir Pellanor says that destiny will
allow none but him or his next of kin to kill
the beast; then he takes Arthur's horse by
force.
Then Merlin comes, disguised as a child of
fourteen. Merlin tells Arthur that he is
Uther's son by Igrayne. Arthur refuses to
believe the boy because of his youth, and
Merlin leaves, then returns as an old man.
He now tells Arthur that if he would only
have listened to him, the boy might have
told him many things. Merlin-as-old-man
tells him only that he has lain by his sister
and has gotten on her the child who will
destroy him. Then, revealing himself, Merlin
prophesies that whereas Arthur will die a
worshipful death, Merlin's death will be
shameful he will be sealed in the earth
alive.
A few days later a squire comes to the court
with his dying master, wounded by Sir
Pellanor. A young squire of Arthur's court,
Gryfflet, asks to be made knight and avenge
the wrong; and against Merlin's advice,
Arthur grants the boy's request. Gryfflet
fights Pellanor and returns again to the court
nearly dead. With his mind on Gryfflet,
Arthur hastily and angrily dismisses envoys
from King Lucius of Rome and rides out
himself again against Merlin's advice
fights Pellanor, and is beaten. He is about to
be beheaded when Merlin saves him by
means of a spell. Merlin tells him that
Pellanor will do him great service later, and
that his two sons, Percival and Lamerok of
Wales, will be two of the most valiant
knights of the Round Table.
Having lost his sword in the fight with
Pellanor, Arthur asks Merlin what he should
do. Merlin guides him to a magical lake
where an arm reaches out of the water
holding a sword. Merlin takes him now to
the Lady of the Lake, who gives him the
sword, demanding that he give some return
gift later, when she asks for it. Arthur
agrees. The sword is the finest in the world,
the scabbard better yet: as long as he wears
the scabbard, nothing can harm him.
They return to court, where new troubles are
waiting. Messengers from King Royns of
North Wales say that Royns has overcome
the eleven kings, has taken their beards, and
now demands Arthur's. Arthur refuses them
as angrily as lie earlier refused the Roman
king's demand for tribute. Then, advised by
Merlin that he should destroy all highborn
children delivered on May Day, because
Mordred is one of them, Arthur orders these
children brought to his court. They are put
on a ship, which drives onto rocks killing all
but one Mordred. Many of Arthur's lords
and barons are furious, hearing of the death
of their sons. Some blame Arthur, some
Merlin. But for the time, they hold their
peace.
Analysis
Besides straightening out and tightening the
development Le Morte d'Arthur 19 of plot,
Malory departs from his source for "Merlin"
in two main ways: in the characterization of
Arthur, King Lot, and Merlin, and in his
grouping of tribute demands at the end of
this episode. The effectiveness of the
characterization is partly a product of
Malory's style his swift presentation of
action, his blunt realism, his habit of
avoiding any complicated analysis of
emotion. For example:
So whan the duke and his wyf were comyn
unto the kynge, by the meanes of grete
lordes they were accorded bothe. The kynge
lyked and loved this lady wel, and he made
them grete chere out of mesure and desyred
to have lyen by her, but she was a passyng
good woman and wold not assente unto the
kynge.
When the duke and his wife have retreated
and the siege is underway, Malory says:
Thenne for pure angre and for grete love of
fayr Igrayne the kyng Uther felle seke. So
came to the kynge Utber syre Ulfius, a noble
knyght, and asked the kynge why he was
seke.
"I shall telle the," said the kynge. "I am seke
for angre and for love of fayre Igrayne, that I
may not be hool."
"Well, my lord," said syre Ulfius, "I shal
seke Merlyn and he shalle do yow remedy,
that youre herte shal be pleasyd."
By these swift strokes, Malory arrives at the
introduction of Merlin, agent of Arthur's rise
and fall. On the other hand, Malory can
switch from swift narration to scenes slowly
and carefully worked out. When Arthur
draws the sword from the stone, for
instance, Kay's lie (his pretense that he
himself drew it out), his father's suspicion,
Arthur's grief at finding he is not Sir Ector's
son, and Arthur's pledge that he will always
be faithful to Ector and Kay, are all
developed slowly, through dialog and
gesture.
But at the heart of Malory's characterization
is his original sense of how each character
contributes to and defines the total tragedy.
He makes Merlin directly responsible for
every step of Arthur's progress even his
birth. He seems at first to be a prophet, a
direct agent of God. But he is not. He is part
demonic tempter, part wizard: he knows
necromancy, and he can see into the future,
but his vision, like that of any astrologer or
(as Lot says) "dream-reader" is imperfect. In
medieval terms, he can see into the workings
of Fortune but not always into those of
Providence. To trust him is to trust not God,
but "the World."
Malory's method is to present Merlin first in
his best light manipulating Uther's lust to
his own end, guiding Arthur to greater and
greater power then to reveal, little by
little, Merlin's dangerous flaws. In the joke
he plays on Arthur after the battle of
Bedgraine, Merlin appears dressed in the
hides of black sheep and offers treasure
"under the ground" for a gift from Arthur.
Nothing comes of the joke, but it has
ominous overtones of demonic temptation.
For medieval writers, to trust in the World
(whose prophet is Merlin) is to trust the
devil, emblematically identified with both
black sheep and treasure under the ground.
(We learn later that Merlin is a devil's son.)
Merlin's deadly mistakes his failure to
warn Arthur against lying with Lot's wife
and his still more terrible mistake in the
attempted murder of Mordred reveal how
dangerous his limitations are.
Malory's King Lot is a much more heroic
and forceful figure than the King Lot of the
sources. Malory focuses on him at once,
makes him the leader of Arthur's enemies,
and insists on his nobility and courage (for
instance, Lot's nightmare and panic in the
sources is assigned to another king in
Malory). He is thus made a worthy
antagonist to Merlin's plan and Arthur's
kingship. And Arthur is similarly ennobled:
Malory underscores his loyalty to Sir Ector,
to kings who are his friends, and to the
young squire Gryfflet.
The structure of the "Merlin" is as
remarkable as the characterization. Half-way
through, events flow in a straight narrative
line, reflecting our sense that all is well;
Merlin is in full control. But immediately
after Merlin's joke, everything changes.
Apparently motivated by casual lust, Arthur
sleeps with an earl's daughter and gets on
her a son who will do him great honor.
Immediately afterward, in what seems to
Arthur an exactly similar situation, he
commits incest and dooms himself.
All the remaining incidents involve demands
for tribute, Le Morte d'Arthur 21 one after
another Sir Pellanor's demands, King
Lucius' demand, King Royns' demand for
Arthur's beard. All the demands are stalled
off for the moment, but they are all still
there, biding their time like the fathers of the
murdered children. Thus the opening tale,
"Merlin," sets tip the ironic principle which
will govern the whole Morte d'Arthur.