Lesson video

Hi there, I'm Mr. Buckingham and it's so good to see you here for today's lesson.

Today we're going to continue reading the story of "Beowulf" and we're going to learn about the aftermath of Beowulf's Battle with Grendel.

This is another really dramatic part to the story and I thought you're going to really enjoy it.

So let's get going.

Today's lesson is called Beowulf Faces a New Foe, and it comes by a unit called "Beowulf" Reading.

By the end of today's lesson, you'll outlined the key events in the fifth chapter of "Beowulf" and you'll have explained the author's language choices.

And for this lesson, you'll need to have access to the 2013 Oxford Children's Classics Edition of "Beowulf", written by Kevin Crossey-Holland and illustrated by Charles Keeping.

If you have that with you, let's begin.

Here are keywords for today's lesson, A setting is where a story takes place.

Language choices are decisions writers make in order to create a certain impression or to have a certain effect on the reader.

Impressions are feelings about a person, place, or thing gained from reading a text.

And a kenning is a phrase of two words that are replaces a noun that is often used in old English poetry.

Here's our lesson outline today.

We're going to start off by reading and exploring the first part of Chapter Five and then we'll move on to explaining the authors and language choices.

As you know, we're reading a translation and adaptation of the old English epic poem "Beowulf" and our version is written by Kevin Crossley-Holland.

In Chapter Four which goes up to page 22, we read the following event.

So that's where we're at right now.

We read that the monster Grendel came to Heorot at night and he killed and ate Leofric, a Geat warrior.

And then Beowulf, who is also a Geat member, grabbed hold of Grendel's arm and refused to let go.

And he then pinned the arm behind Grendel's back and it snapped off and then Grendel ran off and the Geats celebrated his death.

Then King Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, rewarded Beowulf and the Geats for their efforts.

And then Beowulf went to sleep in an outbuilding as the others continued to sleep in Heorot that big drinking hall and one of them we were told is doomed to die.

So we already know there's going to be another death in the story.

In Chapter Five will learn who died and perhaps who killed them.

So in Chapter Four we read that Leofric was killed by Grendel as Beowulf watched.

So why do you think Beowulf watched Leofric die? And why didn't he try and stop Grendel before he killed Leofric? Pause the video and have a think.

That's the end, good thinking.

Here's what Jacob said.

"I think he knew that there was nothing he could do to stop this one death- Grendel had just come in the door of Heorot and grabbed the nearest person, and he ate him so quickly too!" So Jacob saying, well, he didn't really have the opportunity, but there might be another reason as well.

Jacob says, "Beowulf realised that if he stayed quiet and got into position, he would've a better chance of getting hold of Grendel and therefore preventing lots more deaths." So it's like you had to sacrifice one person, Leofric in order to save many more.

So perhaps he knew if he stayed hidden and quiet, he'd get into a better position to attack Grendel and therefore save many more lives.

Well done for your thoughts there.

Here's another question.

Chapter Four ended with the threat of another person doomed to die as slept.

So what do you predict is going to happen? Perhaps you've got some thoughts about who might die, about how they might die and about what might happen as a result of that.

Pause the video and have think.

Well done, good work.

Here's what Sam said.

"Although none of the characters has seen Grendel's dead body, the authors told us that he's dead.

Because of that, I think this is going to be a completely different monster." So Sam doesn't think it's Grendel.

Sam believes Grendel's dead.

She thinks someone else is gonna come along.

So other monster it's going to appear.

We know that Beowulf is sleeping elsewhere, so he's not going to be able to stop the death from happening, but maybe he will go and hunt down the new monster.

We've been told only one person will die, so I don't think it'll be a huge massacre.

That's right at the end of Chapter Four, it said one person sleeping in Heorot was doomed to die.

So Sam is saying new monster's going to come along, will kill one person and then Beowulf is going to go and hunt that monster down.

Let's see if Sam's right, and she is.

In Chapter Five, Beowulf will be facing a new foe, a new enemy, a new monster.

So I want you to now have a look at the illustrations on pages 23 and 24.

Why do you think they chose two such contrasting images here, one on 23 and one on 24.

Pause the video, have a look at those pictures and have a chat with the person next to you.

Why we seeing such a big contrast between these two pictures? Why is the author and the illustrator made that choice? Well done, good discussion.

Here's what Laura says.

"On page 23, we see the Geats gathered around Beowulf celebrating happily.

On page 24, we see a terrifying monster.

He seems to be running towards this.

I think the illustrator is trying to show that the happiness everyone feels about Grendel's death is about to come to an end." So there's this big contrast isn't there, between the happiness on page 23 and the threat that's looming on page 24 of this monster rushing towards us.

So perhaps the author is trying to show us along with the illustrator that the happiness they feel is going to be very short lived because this new terrifying creature is approaching fast.

Now we're going to read Chapter Five over two lessons.

So we won't read the whole thing today just part of Chapter Five.

Let's look at some vocabulary we're going to see in the first part of Chapter Five that we'll read together.

If you are roused, it means you're woken up.

So you might be roused at dawn by the sound of a rooster.

A fell is a high barren land.

And in this chapter, grasp means arms. So it's used as a noun here to mean arm.

If you have honour, if somebody does the right thing, you are renowned if you are well known or you are talked about a lot.

So you might say that Beowulf is a renowned hero.

A fissure is a crack.

And here seething means moving fast.

Perilous means dangerous, and hoar-frost is that frost we sometimes see on a winter morning on the leaves of plants.

A precipice is a great word for a steep drop.

So a cliff is a precipice.

And dawned means put on.

So he dawned his overcoat before going out into the hoar-frost perhaps.

So all these words are going to come up in the section we're going to read now.

So I'd like you to now have a go at reading up to the end of page 27, ending with the word fight.

Pause the video and have a go at reading that section.

Well done great reading.

What a dramatic section.

We've seen that the monster that's come back is in fact Grendel's mother and she's come back to Heorot to kill a man who's called Aeschere.

Now, when Beowulf learns about Grendel's mother coming back and killing Aeschere, he uses this word vengeance.

So why does he use that word? Well, Hrothgar has told him that Grendel's mother was the one who killed Aeschere, and Beowulf has realised that she's seeking revenge or vengeance, another word for revenge for Grendel's death.

So Beowulf uses that word because he's realised that the reason Grendel's mother has come back is because she's heard that her son has died.

She's seen that her son has died perhaps, and she wants revenge or vengeance on the person who did it.

And she might not know that Beowulf was the one who did it, but she's realised that Danes in Heorot are the ones who are responsible.

So she's come back for revenge.

Let's look at page 25 again.

See if you can find the section where Beowulf is talking about honour.

Why is he talking about honour here? What's he referring to? Pause the video and have a think.

Well, that great ideas.

"So He's saying that monsters have the same sense of right and wrong of honour that humans do.

So a human might want revenge for a child's death and a monster feels the same." So he's saying that he kind of understands why Grendel's mother has done this, because he understands that she has the same honour, the same kind of ideas about right and wrong, that human might even though she's this terrifying monster.

So he's almost empathising with Grendel's mother a little bit and saying, well, they have honour in the same way that we do and that explains why she's come back and done this.

Have a look now at the paragraph from page 25 that starts with the word Beowulf.

What do we learn about Beowulf's motivations in this paragraph? Why is he so keen to defeat all these monsters? Pause the video, look back carefully in that paragraph and have a think.

Well done, good ideas.

Here's what Lucas says.

He says that anyone who's able to should be aiming to get renowned and fame before they die, and that being famous is the best possible memorial for a warrior.

So what does all this mean? What he's saying that the most important thing is to be known and remembered by people after you are dead.

So Lucas says, "It's clear, he's not just doing it to help people, he wants glory too." And this would've been a big part of the culture at that time, was the idea that it's important to be remembered after you are dead and that's Beowulf's motivation for doing all these heroic and brave things.

Partly of course he wants to protect these people and to help them, but partly he wants people to be talking about him.

He wants to be renowned and especially once he's dead, once he's gone, he wants to be remembered long after that.

So this might be part of why he's not so scared of dying in these fights and these battles because he knows that if he does that, he will die a hero and people will still be talking about him even if he's gone.

So we've got a better understanding now of Beowulf's reasons for acting in the way that he does, rather.

Now on pages 25 and 26, we see a description of Beowulf's journey towards Grendel's mother's lair, so the place where she lives.

Which of the following barriers and difficulties does he face along the way? Have a look at the pages, pause the video and see what you think.

Well done, good ideas.

So hopefully he spotted he faced lots of these barriers.

They face high winds and bogs and cold water and narrow paths and even lakes where demons live.

So loads of barriers being faced on the way to Glendel's lair, which shows us, doesn't it, how keen they are to get there, that they're willing to overcome all these barriers.

Now let's just see if we really understood that section by putting these events in order.

Pause the video and have a go.

Well done, great job.

Hopefully started with Beowulf is woken in the night and taken to Hrothgar, then Ruth car explains that Grendel's mother has killed Aeschere.

Then Beowulf reassures Hrothgar that he'll kill Grendel's mother and leads a group of Geats and Danes towards her lair.

And finally, the group arrives at the lake which covers the lair and Beowulf puts on his armour and he reconciles or kinda makes up with Unferth, and Unferth even gives him a sword, doesn't he? So Beowulf now ready to enter the lake to fight Grendel's mother.

Let's read the next part of Chapter Five and we're going to need the following vocabulary as we read.

If a room is a vaulted, it has an arched roof.

If you grapple with someone, you're wrestling with them.

A clinch is a tight hold.

If a sword is double edged, it's sharp on both sides of the blade.

The hilt is the handle of the sword, the bit that you hold, and vertebrae, I'm sure you know are the bones of our spine, our backbone.

I'd like you now to have a go at reading up to the word feet on page 33.

Pause the video and have a go.

Well done, great reading.

So we've seen that another really dramatic part of this story where Beowulf has managed to kill Grendel's mother as well.

So we're going to explore a few questions relating to this now.

So we saw that on page 28 when Beowulf is explaining his plant to Hrothgar, Hrothgar says No.

So why does he say that? Well Beowulf is suggesting the possibility that he Beowulf might die and he might end up covered in blood.

And Hrothgar is saying no to this idea, not to the plan, but to the idea of be wolf dying because he doesn't want to even imagine the idea of this hero Beowulf who's shown himself to be so brave and useful being killed in this way.

Now have a look at page 29.

Where do be Wolf and Grendel's mother end up? Where do they end up having their fight? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, good thinking? So we know that they go down through the lake and they end up in a big arched hall.

So they're underneath the lake, but instead of being filled with water as we'd expect if it's underneath the lake, it is in fact completely dry.

So there's perhaps some magical element going on here as well.

Well done for finding that on page 29.

Now I'd like to have a go answering these questions based on what we've just read.

And you might want to look back at pages 32 and 33 to help you.

Pause the video and have a go.

Well done, good thinking.

So first of all, what was the problem with Hrunting, the sword? Well, it was useless, wasn't it against her and she was unharmed by it.

So it couldn't get through her skin.

It did nothing at all to harm Grendel's mother.

So b, what prevented Beowulf from being stabbed to death? Well, it was only the fact that he was wearing his chain-mail that stopped her dagger.

For c, what did Beowulf find in the court of the hall? He was very lucky, wasn't he? He found that huge giant-made sword.

And how did he kill Grendel's mother? Well, he slashed her neck and he broke her spine with the sword as well.

Now let's do our first task for this lesson.

In this part of the book, Kevin Crossley-Holland the author provides a beautiful description of the setting.

So I'd like to look again at the description of Beowulf and his companions journey towards Grendel's mother's lair on pages 25 and 26.

And then discuss with a partner what things are being described about this setting and what kind of countryside are they going through.

When you've done that, draw a quick sketch of the scenery they might have passed through based on the description that's been given.

And then label your sketch with words and phrases from the text to describe the things that you've drawn to show that you've pulled that evidence from the text in order to inform your sketch.

And then have a think? What atmosphere does this setting create? What impression is the author trying to give us of the countryside they're going through? And why has he chosen that kind of countryside for the setting? Pause video and have a go.

Really well done, good job.

You might have included the following features in your sketch.

Maybe you have forests and hills and the monsters footprints, or wolves and windy headlands and bogs and marshes.

Maybe you also included streams and cracks which are rocky outcrops.

Narrow paths and little lakes and even a cliff towering over a lake.

So what's the effect of including all these features in this setting? Well, this setting because of all these features being included, feels kind of desolate and lonely and it helps to create a slightly anxious moody atmosphere.

And that makes sense because we know the men are heading into danger, they're heading towards Grendel's mother's lair.

So the setting helps add to that mood of threat and danger that the author's trying to create for us as they approach this dangerous situation.

Really well done for drawing your sketch and annotating it so well.

So now we're gonna have a go explaining some of the authors language choices.

Now we know the authors make specific language choices in order to communicate certain ideas to the reader.

And the author's aim is have an effect on the reader to give us a specific impression of a character, a place or a thing.

Let's have a look at some examples.

Hrothgar uses the word lair for Grendel's mother's home and Hrothgar uses the verbs snatched, barged, and grabbed to describe the movements of Grendel's mother in Heorot when she came and killed Aeschere.

So the authors chose some really powerful words there.

Lair, snatched, barged, grabbed, why? What impression was the author trying to create? Well, these language choices build our impression of Grendel's mother as being sinister, being very angry and being very fast moving.

So by choosing those particular words, lair instead of home, snatched instead of picked up, barged instead of walked in, and grabbed again instead of picked up, that creates a much more negative, much more angry, fast moving sinister impression of Grendel's mother.

So the author's language choices have contributed to our impression of that character, of Grendel's mother.

Now let's consider the effect of some other language choices.

On page 26, the author uses the words perilous, freezing, and windswept to describe different parts of the landscape that we just dream.

So what's the effect of these language choices? What impression does it create? Pause the video and have a chat to the person next to you.

Well done, great thinking.

So these words make the journey sound dangerous, don't they? And they make us think that Beowulf and his companions are brave and determined overcoming so many obstacles to reach Grendel's mother.

If the author had described it as a very pleasant journey, which wasn't perilous, where there was nothing freezing, where nothing was windswept, it wouldn't give this impression of bravery and determination because they wouldn't be overcoming any obstacles.

So by making it clear that they are overcoming obstacles, the author gives us the impression through his language choices that these characters are brave and determined.

Now, one really interesting type of language that we see a lot in Beowulf is a kenning.

And a kenning is a two word phrase that replaces a noun by describing it.

Let me show you what to mean.

For instance, the wind could be called the following.

It could be called sky-sweeper because the wind sweeps the clouds out of the sky.

It could be called cloud-pusher for the same reason.

It could be called air-dancer because wind is like dancing air.

We could call it weather maker because the wind drives a lot of the other weather that we experience.

Notice how each of these is two words joined by a hyphen and it's replacing the word wind.

So they're all kennings that are placed wind by describing it.

So instead of saying wind, we say sky-sweeper.

Now kennings are ways of describing nouns indirectly.

So the reader might have to guess what the noun is.

We might not necessarily immediately realise that all of those kennings refer to wind if we weren't told that.

So for instance, the kenning bone-house could refer to the human body because it's like a house in which bones live, or to a graveyard which is a place where bones are found.

And similarly the Kenning sky-lantern could refer to the sun a bright light in the sky, or it could refer to the moon and the stars because maybe they give more of that glow that we'd expect from lantern.

So all of these examples are the kennings because they're two words joined by hyphen that replace a noun by describing it in kind of an imaginative way.

And we see these a lot in old English writing, and the author is use them in his translation here.

Now let's consider the effect of using Kennings like this.

Imagine that we used the kenning death-bringer for a sword.

What's the effect of this language choice? Instead of just saying that it was a sword, we called it death-bringer.

Well, that makes us think that the sword is very powerful and that it's been used to kill many enemies.

So it creates the impression that it can do a lot of damage.

So we could say saying death-bringer instead of the sword is much more powerful, but it gives us this impression that that sword is a bringer of death, that it's able to do lots of damage to other people.

Now you try.

What might the Kenning wave cutter refer to and what impression does this create? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, great thinking.

So it might refer to a boat like tip that cuts through the waves, and this creates the impression that the boat is very fast and then it moves easily through the water.

So it's like it's cutting through really easily.

Now, you might have said something slightly different and that's okay.

Part of what makes Kennings interesting, is that we can't always be entirely sure what they refer to, and it's partly about us, the reader interpreting them for ourselves.

So well done for doing that.

So let's consider some language choices in detail in our second task here.

I want you to look at these three kennings from Chapter Five.

We've got grief-map on page 25, war-music on page 32 and sea-wolf on page 29.

I want us to think about each of these in turn.

First of all, why might Hrothgar face be a grief-map? And what is the author trying to say about his life by using that kenning.

For the second one, what does playing war music mean? What impression does this give of what Beowulf is doing? And what does the Kenning sea-wolf refer to and what impression does it give us of what it describes? So I'd like to look back at the text to help you to understand each Kenning and answer those three questions.

Pause the video and have a go.

Well then, great job.

Let's have a look at how those different kennings work.

The first one is grief-map.

Why has Hrothgar's face been described in this way? Well, a map as we know is covered in lines.

So perhaps the map that's referred to here is the lines on his face that have been caused by all the grief that he's experienced in his life because of the monster and how it's terrorised Denmark.

So it's like he's had so much grief that the lines it's caused on his face look like a map now.

What about war-music? Well, this is where Beowulf is attacking Grendel's mother.

So this refers to be wolf hitting his sword against the monster's face.

And the word war gives the impression he's fighting really hard against the monster.

And then the word music suggests maybe it's making a lot of noise, or maybe it's like playing drums. So he is doing lots of hitting and banging on her head.

So war-music there makes it sound like he's fighting very hard in a way that's very loud and almost musical.

So perhaps it's got some rhythm to it as well.

And what about sea-wolf? Well, this is a description of Grendel's mother.

So the word sea makes sense because of course at this point they're fighting underwater.

And then the word wolf gives the impression that she's kind of vicious or terrifying like a wolf.

So this description makes us feel that Grendel's mother is going to be difficult to defeat.

She's happy in the sea, but she's also this aggressive creature like the wolf, and that will make her a difficult enemy to face.

So as you continue to read Beowulf, keep an eye out for more of these Kemming that you might see and think about the impression that they create.

Well done, let's summarise our learning in this lesson.

We've learned that Beowulf is woken in the night to be told that a new monster, Grendel's mother has carried off a Dane, and he and his companions then journey to her under-lake lair.

Beowulf, then fights with Grendel's mother narrowly avoiding death, and he finds a new sword and kills her with it.

We've seen that the author provides a rich description of the setting of the story that helps add to that moody atmosphere.

And we know that writers make language choices in order to create certain impressions of characters, places and things.

And we've seen that kennings are used in old English writing to replace nouns.

Really well done for your fitness in this lesson.

Let's find our next lesson what happens when Beowulf returns to Heorot.

I'd love to see you there, goodbye.