The epic poem 'Beowulf' contains allusions to several Biblical stories, including Cain and Abel, the death of

Christ, the ten commandments, and the story of the great flood. We'll identify these allusions and explain how
they function in the poem.

Allusions
Remember the famous fairy tale 'Snow White'? In the story, Snow White is tricked by the evil queen into eating a
poisoned apple, but you may not know that the apple can be a symbol for something else. This brings us to the
literary device called allusion. An allusion is just a reference to well-known people, events, literature, and
things. It's a common literary device that authors use to call attention to a particular theme or to emphasize the
importance of a scene. For instance, in 'Snow White,' the poisoned apple reminds us how Eve was tricked by the
serpent in the Bible to eat the forbidden fruit.

Biblical allusions are by far one of the easiest to identify and probably most used types of allusions in literature.
Today we're going to discuss biblical allusions that appear in the old English epic poem Beowulf.

Cain and Abel

In the Bible, Cain and Abel were the sons of Adam and Eve. Cain murdered his brother in an act of passion and
was punished by God; he was marked and suffered to toil the ground, though it would no longer produce crops
for him. Cain was essentially shunned from society for committing this horrible crime.

In Beowulf, we are introduced to Grendel, a monster who is murdering Hrothgar's men for sport. When the author
describes Grendel, he describes him as a monster and relates him to Cain:

'Till the monster stirred, that demon, that fiend Grendel who haunted the moors, the wild marshes, and made his
home in a hell. Not hell but hell on earth. He was spawned in that slime of Cain, murderous creatures banished
by God, punished forever for the crime of Abel's death. '

Like Cain, Grendel has committed horrendous crimes and is shunned from society as punishment. The
difference between the two is that Grendel is committing these crimes because he likes to, whereas Cain
committed his crime in a fit of passion. This first allusion shows us that the Christian author was not a fan of
Cain and his crimes.

Pagan Worship
In the book of Exodus, God commanded the descendants of Abraham through Moses to not have other gods
before him. Many Christians believe that this means that Paganism is not allowed if one is following the word of
God. This is interesting because Beowulf was written sometime between the 8th and 11th centuries by an
anonymous man; but while the specific time in which the piece was written is debatable, it is obvious that the
author had knowledge of Christianity and Paganism, and the reference to Paganism is notable because
Paganism was still the primary religion of the Anglo-Saxons in the time period that the author is writing about
(not the one in which he lived).

So where do we see this in the text? The following line is an allusion to the commandment warning men to not
have other gods besides the God of the Bible. The author describes Hrothgar's men in this fashion:

'. . .and sometimes they sacrificed to the old stone gods, made heathen vows, hoping for Hell's support, the
Devil's guidance in driving their affliction off. That was their way, and the heathen's only hope Hell always in
their hearts, knowing neither God nor His passing as He walks through our world, the Lord of Heaven and Earth;
their ears could not hear His praise or know His glory.'

In this quotation, we see the author referring to their primitive worship as sinful, but he also acknowledges that
this was their only way at the time because they did not have knowledge of God. It seems that the author
accepts their transgressions and is merely stating how they handled things in the Anglo-Saxon time.

The Great Flood

When Beowulf kills Grendel's mother, there is a Biblical allusion to the tale of the flood. In the commonly-known
tale, God creates a flood to punish the people of the Earth after he looked down on the world and saw that
mankind had become corrupt.