Modern Adaptation and Report

Sam Peterson

ENG 235

Song Adaptation of Beowulf :

The Warrior King

Verse 1:
There once was a man named Beowulf,
A king with a warrior’s past.
Slaying old dragons and demons, yes,
His memory forever will last.

I sing you a tale of this old legend’s youth,

A tale of this man, this great.
There was terror in Heorot, a terror inherited
By Beowulf’s team of Geats.

Pre-chorus:
The giant beast Grendel
Had proved quite a handful,
Killing thirty men a night,
Then came brave Beowulf
Without shred of armor
Hoping for one hell of a fight!

Chorus:
Beowulf got what he wanted!
A glorious fight in Heorot Hall,
With one great pull, Grendrel’s arm was nulled
And Beowulf’s reputation unspotted.

Verse 2:
Searching in vengeance for her son’s killer,
A new threat had appeared.
The demon’s own mother had found her way upward
And stole Hrothgar’s old friend Aeschere.

Her prey in her palm and mens’ blades at her back,

She fled for her home, the lake,
 Beowulf was awoken, a new oath is spoken,
And the warrior began his chase.

Pre-chorus 2:
The giant beast’s mother
Had gone back down under
The wicked and unholy lake.
Beowulf pursued her
And wished to destroy her
So downward and downward he sank.

Chorus:
Beowulf got what he wanted!
A fight with the mother to death!
By a giant-forged blade, the mother was slain,
And Beowulf arose from the depths.

Outro (Verse 3):

Beowulf returns with his men at his side
And Grendel’s head in his hand.
The giant-forged hilt and demon skull gifts
Are proof of a secure land.

The morning arrives and the Danes provide

Beowulf with a savior’s pay.
The Geats sail off for their homeland adventures
But that’s a tale for another day.

Summary of Adaptation

“The Warrior King” is a recount of the first half of Beowulf, when Beowulf came to the

Danes’ aid to defeat Grendel and his mother. I wanted to write this song like a medieval minstrel

piece, like a bard telling the story in a tavern. This piece is titled “The Warrior King,” but it does

not speak of Beowulf’s time as king. I wrote this title with the thought process that it would be

multiple songs under the name. If we have another project like this and we can choose any of the

pieces we read, I will probably do the story of Beowulf and the dragon in song form.
Background Information

Beowulf was written by a Christian author, likely a clergyman, between the 8th and 10th

century. This timeframe is significant because it was after the establishment of Christianity in the

previously pagan England, and the author wrote of a time before that conversion. Therefore, this

is a story about pagan times told through the Christian lens.

My song does not represent the Christian aspect of the literature at all; medieval churches

were very strict on what sort of music was deemed Christian and what was not. The scenes I

drew from, though, loosely relate to Christianity. Authors of this time faced a unique issue: the

epic stories of the pagan past were, frankly, epic. They wanted to maintain the awesome plots

and fights of old stories but add new, more Christian factors. In Beowulf, one of the first points

of integration is the history of Grendel. Grendel, the monster (called a demon in my song), was

descended from Cain himself, the brother-killer from the Bible whose descendants God

attempted to wipe out with a great flood. Another tactic of integration authors would try is

deifying the main character. The hero had to be like Jesus, but more aggressive. This is up for

debate as to whether it is the case in Beowulf. Does Beowulf go to battle alone time and time

again out of hubris? Or is he sacrificing himself so nobody he loves can get hurt? I personally

think this it is the latter.

The trend of deifying the main hero is common in much medieval British literature. The

Renaissance saw a change in focus from epics. Themes and concepts from epics were transferred

into new types of stories, but in the Medieval Era it was popular to adjust epics to fit Christian

audiences. This is seen in many King Arthur stories, where violence is simultaneously

condemned and encouraged. In Morte d’Arthur, for example, Arthur has a gloriously violent past

but does not want to fight those close to him. He eventually dies a supernatural and mysterious
death. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain is given many blessings and blessed items.

He is valiant on the battlefield, which we as the audience never really see, and is honorable to his

peers throughout the entire story. He is nearly Christ-like in his behavior, an example of how one

should act.

In regard to politics and history, a common thing to do in medieval literature was

combine history with fiction. This is seen in Beowulf with many historical sites and figures that

can be verified. There was a historical Hrothgar and a large mead hall, Heorot. The Geats and the

Danes were obviously real—geographical neighbors and allies following a period of tension.

The approach to Christianity that makes Beowulf unique compared to the other pieces we

have looked at is the time at which it takes place. As mentioned earlier, Beowulf was written by a

Christian poet about the Pagan past. The author quietly ties Christianity into a seemingly Pagan

epic. In Chaucer’s “The Pardoner’s Tale,” the speaker discusses the nature of a position many

people take to take advantage of Christians. This is done in a time when the practice was still

regular. In The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser, many plot points and characters themselves

are references to concepts in the Bible, with the main hero named after the cross Jesus died on

(Red Crosse Knight). In Book 1 John Milton’s Paradise Lost, we see the aftermath of Lucifer’s

banishment from Heaven. This acts as a sort of filler for gaps in the Bible’s timeline. The main

and evident difference is that the latter three are speaking about Christian concepts in a time

when Christianity was popular. Beowulf, however, is writing about Pagan concepts when

Christianity is popular, and therefore has to retroactively place Christian themes into a Pagan

lore.