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man status is conferred on the basis of conformance to social rules.”24 This
is apparent in the case of Grendel who, as a descendant of Cain, could be
called ‘human’ – and who is referred to as both a wer [man] (l. 105) and a
healðegn [hall-thane] (l. 142), both obviously human epithets.25 However,
as someone who turns decidedly against humans by engaging in cannibal-
ism, and who renders the hall, the symbol of society, useless, he is also
monstrous: “He is a monster [...] because he also breaks those boundaries
[of social norms], intrudes into human society, performs acts forbidden
by society, and thus threatens society’s very existence.”26 What makes
Grendel monstrous is that he oversteps social boundaries: he does not pay
wergild for his killings, he disrupts human interaction, and he does not ac-
knowledge the power of the local ruler. Because of these crimes, his more
human dimension is forfeited.
Many of these considerations are, as I argue below, also true of Grettir:
he frequently oversteps social norms, stealing from farmers and occupy-
ing land that does not belong to him. all of this moves him further away
from the human society to which he once belonged. neville argues that
“[h]uman beings exist only in social places like the hall, where their roles,
responsibilities, and relationships to each other are clearly defined.”27 While
it is possible to overstate the spatial dimension in the monstrous associa-
tions of outlawry – especially in the case of the sagas28 – it is important to
highlight that it is the breaking of social boundaries, the transgression of
norms – and thus the behavioural aspect – that causes monstrous change.
In Grendel’s case, it is difficult to establish which came first, the transgres-
sion or the monstrous transformation, but in Grettir’s, it is not, since he
starts out as a human child, albeit a difficult one.
from this observation it also emerges that “the line between human
beings like Heremod [or Grettir] and monsters like Grendel can be both
24 neville, “Monsters and Criminals,” 117.
25 He is of course also referred to by a variety of monstrous designations, but it is this ambi-
guity of his ontological status that makes him an interesting starting point for a discussion
of human and social monsters. References to Beowulf are taken from Klaeber’s Beowulf:
Fourth Edition, eds. r. D. fulk, robert E. Bjork and John D. niles (toronto: university
of Toronto Press, 2008).
26 neville, “Monsters and Criminals,” 117.
27 Ibid., 119.
28 See Eleanor Barraclough, “Inside outlawry in Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar and Gísla saga
Súrssonar: Landscape in the outlaw Sagas,” Scandinavian Studies 82 (2010): 365–88.