Beowulf: Plot Synopsis

The principal plot consists of what its translator, Seamus Heaney, has called three agons (from a Greek word meaning “struggle”): Beowulf’s encounters with Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and a Dragon. The numbers below correspond to lines in the poem.

• 26ff.: funeral for Shield Sheafson, Hrothgar’s great-grandfather, his body sent “on out into the ocean’s sway” (42). (The poem opens and closes with a funeral.)
• 99-114: Grendel descended from Cain.
• 115ff.: Grendel attacks Heorot, Hrothgar’s great hall.
• 170-88: narrator blames Danes’ devotion to “pagan shrines” (175).
• 189ff.: Beowulf the Geat hears of the Danes’ distress and goes to relieve them.
• 456-72: Hrothgar tells of his ending the feud between Beowulf’s father, Ecgtheow, and the Wulfings by sending a treasure trove to the Wulfings on Ecgtheow’s behalf (implying that Beowulf is indebted to Hrothgar).
• 499-606: Unferth’s “contrary words” and Beowulf’s reply.
• 612-41: Queen Wealhtheow “observing the courtesies”; Beowulf’s promise.
• 642ff.: bid goodnight; Beowulf battles and mortally wounds Grendel, but not before the fiend kills and consumes a Danish thane.
• 832-35: Grendel’s torn shoulder, arm, and hand displayed.
• 866ff.: a bard sings “Beowulf’s triumphs”; digression one: Sigemund the valiant dragon-slayer, implicitly compared to Beowulf, and both explicitly contrasted with King Heremod, whose warrior prowess declined because he was overcome by grief (as is Hrothgar?)
• 924ff.: Hrothgar celebrates Beowulf, who responds in kind.
• 979-89: Unferth’s earlier “contrary words” (501) rendered false by the awesome display of Grendel’s hand, Beowulf’s trophy.
• 990ff.: feasting, fellowship, and joy return to Heorot; Beowulf’s deed amply rewarded.
• 1070ff.: digression: bard relates story of Danish/Frisian conflict: Hildeburh, a Danish princess married to Finn, king of the Jutes (Frisians), suffers the loss of her brother Hnaef and son. The feud is resolved, but old resentments resurface when Hengest and the Danes ambush the Jutes, killing Finn and returning home with the queen.
• 1167-90: Queen Wealhtheow acknowledges Horthgar’s intention to adopt Beowulf as a son; but she also admonishes her husband to “bequeath kingdom and nation” to “kith and kin”—namely, his nephew, brother Halga’s son, Hrothulf.
• 1191-1214: Beowulf rewarded with a torque (neck-ring) which, we are told, will be given eventually to his uncle Hygelac (Geat king) who will lose it when the Geats fall to the Frisians.

• 1232ff.: bedtime once again; rest and wellbeing short-lived.
• 1258-78: more info about Grendel’s ancestry: Cain, the first murderer.
• 1294-99: GM (Grendel’s mother) gets Aeschere, one of Hrothgar’s most valued retainers (described by Hrothgar at 1323-31).
• 1361-82: Hrothgar describes the mere, Grendel’s and GM’s swampy home, and offers further reward to Beowulf if the Geat warrior will rid the Danes of the remaining fiend.
• 1397ff.: having accepted the challenge, Beowulf goes after GM.
• 1455-91: Unferth gives Hrunting (famed sword) to Beowulf; Beowulf acknowledges gift and bequeaths his own sword (called “Naegling,” we are told at line 2680) to Unferth should Beowulf die battling GM.
• 1492-1590: Beowulf battles and defeats GM; cuts off the head of Grendel’s corpse.
• 1591-1605: waiting at the surface, Danes give up and leave; but Geats remain hopeful of their leader’s success.
• 1632ff.: Beowulf and Geats, bearing Grendel’s head, return in triumph to Heorot.
• 1709ff.: Hrothgar contrasts Beowulf with evil Danish king, Heremod (cf. 866 above), and goes on to admonish Beowulf to avoid dissolute behavior and pride. At one point the Danish king tells the warrior to seek “eternal rewards” (1760). (Is this a Christian sentiment, or does Hrothgar mean something like glorious reputation?)
• 1807-12: Beowulf returns Hrunting to Unferth, but in keeping with his character tells a noble lie: that the sword not only did not fail him, but that it was “a powerful help.”
• 1813ff.: Geats return home, amply rewarded and beloved of the Danes.
• 1914ff.: Geats arrive home.
• 1931-62: Geat Queen Hygd, having “distributed / bounty to the Geats” (1930-31), is contrasted with the evil Queen Modthryth, who would execute a man for merely glancing at her.
• 2000ff.: home in Hygelac’s hall, Beowulf tells his story.
• 2032-69: Beowulf’s digression, in which he imagines a renewal of hostilities between the Danes and the Heathobards, despite the marriage of Freawaru, Hrothgar’s daughter, to Ingeld the Heathobard. This story ironically recalls the Danish bard’s account of the Finnsburg Episode: both conflicts involve a failed peace alliance through marriage—the Frisian Finn to the Danish Hildeburh; Ingeld the Heathobard to the Danish Freawaru.
• 2152ff.: Beowulf bestows Danish gifts on Hygelac; the torque given to Beowulf is given now to Hygd, Hygelac’s queen.
• 2190ff.: Beowulf rewarded in turn with land, hall, and throne; Hygelac dies in battle against the Shylfings (Swedes); Beowulf becomes king and rules well for “fifty winters … until one began / to dominate the dark, a dragon on the prowl” (2109-11).

• 2213-26: exiled slave steals precious goblet (2217) from Dragon’s lair to appease his master and be reinstated (2281-86).
• 2232-41: treasure an “ancient cache,” the “riches of a high-born race” long since died off.
• 270-81: dragon guarded hoard for three centuries, his fury dormant until aroused by the intruder.
• 2324ff.: Beowulf receives news that the dragon has destroyed his hall, the Geats’ “throne room,” and is resolved to face the beast alone—”too proud” to fight with an army (2245-47).
• 2354-96: digression: circumstances of Beowulf’s rise to power: Hygelac’s death in battle; B’s triumph in the same war; his refusal to be “elevated over Heardred” (Hygelac’s son) as king (2373-76); Heardred’s death at the hands of Onela and the Swedish exiles, his “reward” for extending hospitality (2384-86).
• 2417-24: B’s premonition of his own death.
• 2425ff.: digression: Beowulf recounts Geat history: Haethcyn’s murder of brother Herebeald (recalling Cain and Abel story?) when their father Hrethel was king (2435-62); Hrethel’s heartbreak and death (2462-71); subsequent Swedish invasion, Haethcyn’s (just?) death (2482-83); B’s own part in battling the Swedes and Frisians (2490-2509).
• 2518-28: decision to use weapons—mail shirt, and later shield (2524), and blade (2578)—against the fierce foe.
• 2538ff.: B battles dragon.
• 2596-2601: frightened troops abandon their leader—all except the valiant Wiglaf (2602).
• 2609-25: brief account of Wiglaf’s weapon: won by his father, Weohstan, in battle against Eanmund, Swedish son of Ohthere and nephew to King Onela who “ignored the blood-feud” in rewarding Weohstan the fallen Eanmund’s battle gear (2616-19).
• 2631ff.: Wiglaf shames the cowardly Geats for abandoning Beowulf.
• 2677-93: inspired “by the thought of glory,” Beowulf attacks, but his sword (Naegling) snaps and he is mortally wounded.
• 2694-2711: with Wiglaf’s help, Beowulf slays the dragon.
• 2729-51: Beowulf regrets having no son on whom he might bestow his armour. His only consolation: glory (2732-40), the final celebration of which will be to behold the defeated dragon’s treasure-hoard (2743-51).
• 2794ff.: B gives praise to God and orders the construction of his Barrow at Hronesness; gives his torque, shirt, and helmet to Wiglaf; and dies.
• 2860ff.: Wiglaf rebukes the Geats who abandoned Beowulf and prophesies foreign invasion as their just reward (2886-90; cf. next note).
• 2910ff.: digression: Wiglaf prophesies future decline of Geats at the hands of foreign invaders, especially Swedes, whose feud with the Geats he recounts in some detail (a greater elaboration of the story told by Beowulf at 2425ff.)
• 3038-57: description of dragon and Beowulf lying side by side in death.
• 3058-75: narrator moralizes about gold hoarding—but he seems conflicted. Why?
• 3076ff.: Wiglaf too, though ostensibly eulogizing, begins with this astonishing remark: “Often when one man follows his own will / many are hurt.” Beowulf was wrong to go after the dragon and his hoard? This from the same character who so roundly chastised the Geat tail-turners?
• 3120-36: Wiglaf assembles a crew to get the treasure.
• 3137ff.: Beowulf’s funeral. Description of the Geat woman’s lament at lines 3148-55: fitting close to a story in which heroic values are both celebrated and steeped in blood, even while mourned as part of a fading world.