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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, aglæc 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, dædhata, 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 begi
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 heahfæstne 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:
Hrothgar says:
Hrothgar expands preora sum on lines found elsewhere, either in great elaboration as in the Fates of Men, or in brief allusion to this well-known theme as in The Wanderer 80 ff. But the Seafarer, after thus proclaiming that all men shall die, goes on: 'Therefore it is for all noble men lastworda betst (the best memorial), and praise (lof) of the living who commemorate him after death, that ere he must go hence, he should merit and achieve on earth by heroic deeds against the malice of enemies (feonda), opposing the devil, that the children of men may praise him afterwards, and his lof may live with the angels for ever and ever, the glory of eternal life, rejoicing among the hosts.'
This is a passage which from its syntax alone may with unusual certainty be held to have suffered revision and expansion. It could easily be simplified. But in any case it shows a modification of heathen lof in two directions: first in making the deeds which win lof resistance to spiritual foes—the sense of the ambiguous feonda is, in the poem as preserved, so defined by deofle togeanes, Secondly, in enlarging lof to include the angels and the bliss of heaven. lofsong, loftsong are in Middle English especially used of the heavenly choirs.
But we do not find anything like this definite alteration in Beowulf. There lof remains pagan lof, the praise of one's peers, at best vaguely prolonged among their descendants awa to ealdre. (On soðfæstra dom, 2820, see below). In Beowulf there is hell: justly the poet said of the people he depleted helle gemundon on modsefan. But there is practically no clear reference to heaven as its opposite, to heaven, that is, as a place or state of reward, of eternal bliss in the presence of God. Of course heofon, singular and plural, and its synonyms, such as rodor, are frequent; but they refer usually either to the particular landscape or to the sky under which all men dwell. Even when these words are used with the words for God, who is Lord of the heavens, such expressions are primarily parallels to others describing His general governance of nature (e.g. 1609 ff.), and His realm which includes land and sea and sky.