An Old English Epic Poem
"Fate saves the living when they drive away death by themselves." — A story of glory, monsters, and the courage to face the darkness.
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The great hero of the Geats
Hero · King of the Geats
Beowulf is the main character of the whole story. He's only 20 years old when he shows up to help out, which is pretty impressive. He travels all the way to Greatland because he hears that the people there are getting terrorized by monsters, and he decides it's his job to fix that.
Over the years he fights a ton of different creatures, Grendel, Grendel's mother, sea serpents, and eventually a dragon. He takes them all down and keeps the kingdom safe. His last fight is against the dragon, and even though they beat it, the dragon gets him with a venomous bite and Beowulf ends up dying from it. Before he dies though, he hands everything over to Wiglaf, who is honestly the only guy that had his back.
Creature of darkness and envy
Antagonist · Monster
Grendel is the first big villain in the story. He lives out in the dark somewhere outside of town and honestly just hates seeing other people have a good time. Whenever the people at the mead hall throw a party or celebrate, Grendel gets super jealous and freaks out, so he storms in and starts attacking and killing people. And he keeps doing it over and over again.
Beowulf comes up with a plan to finally stop him. He sets up the mead hall to look like there's another party going on, but this time he's hiding and waiting for Grendel to show up. When Grendel walks in to attack, Beowulf grabs him and literally rips his arm off. Grendel runs off into the woods and bleeds out and dies. That was the end of him.
King of the Danes, builder of Heorot
King · The Danes
Hrothgar is the king of the Danes. He's the one who actually built the mead hall in the first place, so it's a big deal when Grendel keeps showing up and ruining everything. Everyone respects him and thinks he's a great leader, but when it comes to actually protecting his people from Grendel, he kind of falls short. That's why he needs Beowulf to come help.
When Beowulf shows up, Hrothgar treats him almost like a son. He's super welcoming and grateful, and he really looks up to Beowulf as a warrior. Even though Hrothgar is the king, he doesn't go into battle himself, he lets Beowulf handle it because he knows Beowulf is just built differently. He's more of a wise elder type than a fighter at this point in his life.
Fury risen from the deep
Antagonist · Monster
Grendel's mother doesn't even show up until after Beowulf kills her son. Once she finds out what happened, she's absolutely furious. She waits until Beowulf isn't around and then attacks the mead hall herself, killing some of Hrothgar's men before running off and hiding back in her lair deep underwater.
Beowulf isn't going to just let that slide. He tracks her down and has to fight through a bunch of sea monsters just to get to where she's hiding. When he finally reaches her underwater lair, they go at it and Beowulf ends up killing her too. It's honestly one of the hardest fights in the whole story.
Queen of the Danes, peace-weaver
Queen · The Danes
Wealtheow doesn't get a ton of time in this story, but she's still an important character. She's Hrothgar's wife and the queen of the Danes. Her whole thing is being a "peace-weaver," which means she was supposed to help keep the peace and bring people together just by being there as queen.
She never went into battle or anything like that. She stayed in the hall and supported her king and her people from there. It might not seem like a big deal, but in this time period having a calm and graceful queen was actually really important for keeping everything together. She was kind of the glue that held the royal court in place.
The disgraced Danish warrior
Danish Warrior · Hrothgar's Court
Unferth is one of Hrothgar's warriors, but honestly he's a pretty terrible one. He's known for being a coward and doing nothing useful for the kingdom. The worst part is that he actually killed his own brothers at some point, which was a huge deal back then because loyalty to your family was everything. So everyone pretty much knew he was not a good guy.
He didn't help fight Grendel at all and just made things harder for everyone around him. The only thing he ever really did was give Beowulf his sword to use in the fight against Grendel's mother, but even that didn't work out since the sword ended up being completely useless in the battle. He's really just there to show what a bad warrior looks like compared to Beowulf.
Ancient guardian of a cursed hoard
Final Antagonist · Ancient Beast
The dragon is the final boss of the whole story. For 300 years it had just been chilling in an old burial mound, guarding a massive treasure hoard and not really bothering anyone. But then some random person sneaks in and steals a cup from the treasure, and the dragon completely loses it.
Once it wakes up and realizes something is missing, it goes on a full rampage, flying around at night and burning everything in sight, including Beowulf's own mead hall. Beowulf, who is way older at this point, decides to go fight it anyway. Him and Wiglaf take it down together, but the dragon bites Beowulf with its venom in the process. Even though they kill the dragon, Beowulf doesn't survive the poison. It's a pretty rough ending.
The loyal warrior, rightful heir
Warrior · Heir to the Kingdom
Wiglaf doesn't show up until the very end of the story during the dragon fight, but his part is super important. He comes with a group of warriors to help Beowulf take on the dragon. When the fight starts getting really intense and the dragon is going crazy, every single one of the other warriors just turns and runs away. They literally abandoned their king when he needed them most.
But not Wiglaf. He stayed and fought. He's the only one who had enough loyalty and guts to stick it out and fight alongside Beowulf until the very end. Together they bring the dragon down, but Beowulf ends up dying from the venom. With his last breath he passes his crown down to Wiglaf because he was the only one who actually deserved it. After Wiglaf becomes king, his first move is to punish all the cowardly warriors who ran away when Beowulf needed them.