This isn’t the first time a writer attempts to give the monster from Beowulf a POV to tell his side of the story, but it’s the first time I see someone make Grendel into a woman.

In the original epic poem, it’s not clear what kind of creature Grendel is, at least not to lay readers like me, because I’m sure scholars have a better idea of what Grendel is. Personally, I visualise him as a monstrous giant, troll-like and shadow-clad, a mental image born of my impressions from the Seamus Heaney translation that is the only one I’ve ever read, which gives Grendel a shadowy humanlike appearance in the only passage in the poem where he is (somewhat) described. Amusingly, the author told me it was also Heaney’s translation that got her to love Beowulf, and I can see echoes of that in her descriptions of Grendel.

Per the poem, this monster is said to descend from Cain, the first murderer in history according to the Bible, and is surrounded by the imagery of the gigantic and evil Antediluvian offspring of fallen angels and human women (the Nephilim) as described in the Book of Genesis; and following Cain’s dark legacy, he is envious and resentful of humanity because he thinks they’re happy and blessed by God whilst he is cursed, lonely, and hated. So he attacks and murders them in revenge, only to face Beowulf, the hero of light, and be defeated.

I think knowing this Biblical subtext is helpful to contextualise the changes Allison Tebo has introduced in her retelling, especially for those readers that aren’t familiar with the biblical lore behind the poem and thus might feel Break the Beast has too much religion for comfort. The original poem itself contains the struggle of Pagan and Christian worldviews and carries a strong religious imagery, so even though Tebo did make her spin on the legend lean a bit more Christian than the epic poem, it’s not like that came out of the blue and with no basis on the original epic.

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