onster Grendel. Grendel is a fierce andloathsome creature who roams the moors and despises all people and their pleasures. He isthe enemy of everything pure and true. The monster is known for his taste for human fleshand for drinking the blood of his victims. That frightful fiend drank down his [Beowulfs]war-comrades blood and then devoured him piece by blood-smeared piece (p. 394). In theChristian belief system, the drinking of any type of blood of any kind is specifically forbidden. Any Israelite or any alien living among them who eats any blood--I will set my face againstthat person who eats blood and will cut him off from his people (Leviticus 16:10-11a). Beowulf is more troubled by Grendels larger actions of destruction rather than the breakingof this Christian belief. Although it is the evil force rather than the good and pure hero thatparticipates in the drinking of blood, the inclusion of the practice adds to the paganundertones of the story. Thirdly, Christian tradition holds that human bodies are to be buried rather thancremated. Although there is no direct ban against cremation, the Bible speaks clearly aboutashes to ashes, dust to dust. Christian tradition states that God created man from dirt and sothe body will return to the earth. The Bible states: In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eatbread, till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and untodust shalt thou return (Genesis 3:19). Beowulf asks to be burned at a funeral pyre. Let mybattle-famed war-comrades burn my body upon lofty Whales-Cliff (p.413). If Beowulfwere truly a Christian, he would not wish to participate in this pagan burial practice. After hiscremation, Beowulf wants his ashes placed in a memorial tower as a reminder of his bravery. This desire of personal glory and the need for recognition leads into the next pagan referencethat is discussed. A fourth pagan tone in the epic is the strong sense of h...
