linked Grendel's descent from Cain to the monsters and giants of the Cain tradition. Alfred Bammesgerber (2008) looks closely at line 1266 where Grendel's ancestry is said to be the "misbegotten spirits" that sprang from Cain after he was cursed. He argues that the word in Old English geosceaftgasta should be translated "the great former creation of spirits".

Relationship to wider Germanic traditions

Identity as an eoten

In 1936, J. R. R. Tolkien's

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