Image description: Digital art of Beowulf and Grendel (from the Old English poem) wrestling with each other. They are an entangled, twisting mesh of limbs, legs and arms and torsos grabbing onto each other, so it is hard to tell what part belongs to whom. Beowulf looks down at Grendel, whose neck is curled inward and face snarling at the other, while he reaches around and rips Grendel's arm off in a splatter of gore. End ID.
Beowulf & Grendel
Germinal CCXXXIV, pencil on paper & digital.
When reading Beowulf in the original Old English, one of the things that strongly compelled me was the ambiguity and conflation of 'hero' and 'monster'-- especially in the fight between Beowulf and Grendel, where who is doing what becomes quite ambiguous. A lot of thematic meat there! And I wanted to draw it a lot; I've been wanting to draw this for over a year, and finally got the chance to.
Art made by NS or PSEUDEPIGRAPH in the year CCXXXIV or 2026.