Heorot

IN FRONT OF THE HALL WAS A BROAD MEADOW, ACROSS WHICH THE KING AND QUEEN AND THEIR LORDS AND LADIES WERE USED TO WALK.

There was much going on that day in Heorot.

Flocks of children were playing about the pretty paths.

Mothers and aunts and older sisters sat spinning in the open doorways.

Beyond the wide meadow, young men and boys were leading or riding spirited horses up and down to exercise them.

And all, men, women, and children alike, were talking about Beowulf, who had come to kill the monster Grendel and free the people of Heorot beowulf had not much more than entered the hall when the skulp or singer as little widsmith's master was called entered too in those days singers were welcome everywhere they saw beowulf stride mightily across the many-colored floor of heorot and go up to the old king and they heard his voice which sounded like the rumble of a heavy sea on their rock-bound coast hrothgar he said to the old king across the sea's way have i come to help thee of thee beowulf have we need replied the old king in tears for heorot has suffered much from the monster i will deliver thee hrothgar said beowulf in his great voice thee and all who dwell in heorot steep and stony are the sea cliffs joyless are woods and wolf-haunted robbed is our heorot for to grendel can no man do aught he breaks the bones of my people and those of my people he cannot eat in heorot he drags away on to the moor and devours alive and the old bald-headed king seated on his high seat in the hall between his pretty daughter and his tired queen sighed as he thought of the approaching night yet now that beowulf had come he hoped together they gathered about the banquet beowulf sat among the sons of the old king the walls inside were as bright as the roof and gold gilded and the great fires from which smoke poured out through openings in the roof were cheerful and warm then little widsith's master was called up and widsith placed the harp for him clear rose the song from the skop's lips and all the company was still for a while they forgot the monster which even now with the falling dusk was striding up from the sea perhaps by the same path beowulf and widsith and the skop had come already it had grown dark under heaven and darker in the hall and the place was filled with shadowy shapes and now came grendel stalking from the cloudy cliffs toward the gold hall it would have been hard for four men to have carried his huge head so big it was the nails of his hands were like iron and large as the monstrous claws of a wild beast and since there was a spell upon him no sword or spear could harm him While others slept, even frightened little Widsith, who had thought he could never sleep, Beowulf lay awake, ready with his naked hands to fight Grendel.

Suddenly the monster smote the door of Heorot, and it cracked asunder.

In he strode, flame in his eyes, and before Beowulf could spring upon him or any one awake, he snatched a sleeping warrior and tore him to pieces.

[laughs]

Heorot.

Heorot? Heroic? Oh, no.

Guys, I'm having a stroke.

[laughs] I think it's Heorot.

There's a bloody trail dripping down from my ear.

Heorot.

[laughs]

He can't be paid off for his killings.

Beowulf himself is coming to Heorot because he's fulfilling his father's legal debt.

So you kind of have these things going on.

uh in there and i i do think though that we can say that there is a an element of civilization versus retributive justice or a feud without end because uh grindel's mother i mean if we go with the purely retributive system of justice grindel's mother is justified I mean, her her child was was killed.

"'Grendel's mother—here's a description for you—monstrous hell-bride, brooded on her wrongs.

She had been forced down into fearful waters, the cold depths, after Cain had killed his father's son, felled his own brother with a sword, branded an outlaw.

Marked by having murdered, he moved into the wilds, shunned company and joy, and from Cain there sprang misbegotten spirits, among them Grendel, the banished and accursed.' "'Due to come to grips with that watcher in Heorot waiting to do battle.

"'The monster wrenched and wrestled with him.

Calling in on the hospitality of the local governor of Messina, Leonato, played by Richard Briers, who is only too happy to receive Don Pedro and his men for their stay.

A large amount of women connected through family or work with Leonato are, much like when Beowulf and his Geats arrive in Heorot, the mead hall of King Hrothgar, very much interested in these bold, fighting men, some spying potential husbands, others at least an exciting roll in the hay.

Among those women is Hero, played by a brand new Kate Beckinsale, a sweet, sincere, virginal creature who barely says anything in this play and deserves much more than she gets.

She has heard tell of Don Pedro's friend and confidant, the young, dashing Count Claudio, played by Robert Sean Leonard.

Hrothgar was a king whose wars brought him gold and whose hall companions were many.

In the pride of his reign, he commanded a great mead hall to be built, timbered and gilded, a house whose name was Heorot.

There his warriors gathered to drink, to receive rings from their lord, and to hear the scop sing the making of the world.

The song and the joy of Heorot reached the fens.

There lived Grendel, a creature of the borderlands, one of the kin of Cain whom God had marked and driven out.

Night after night, Grendel came from the mist and the marsh.

He tore the doors of Heorot, seized sleeping men, and carried them away to devour.

Thirty he took on the first raid.

Yeah, that's great.

Building of Heorot.

So there's a series of leaders and eventually Hrothgar.

And that's the leader whose reign the first part of Beowulf will focus on.

It's going to be triumphant in the end.

The narrator lets us know it's going to come and lead to the destruction of

Herod.

Exactly.

he's in a tv show from and he is an asshole in that show

yeah he i think he does a pretty good job in this movie um doing what he has to do it's kind of a it's kind of a bad character trope yeah yeah yeah um but the hunters pursue the bear following track and sign until they find a cave the whole time we must add that kanan's uh Kanan's hands are bound and they make a reference to Beowulf when Boromir says to Kanan, it's good Herat mead, which Herat is the hall that Grendel attacks in Beowulf.

So like they're fully recognizing their inspiration

here.