Beowulf: Why Are Vampire Families So Close?

Why are vampire families so close? Because blood is thicker than water. In the epic poem Beowulf, Grendel is the first antagonists that Beowulf encountered during his journey of helping Heorot. He is also a descendant of Cain and is described as an evil, destructive, angry monster who continues to wreak havoc on Heorot because of his anger towards the people. Although, we tend to see Grendel only as a monster we never identify what kind of monster he is ,and it is possible that he holds qualities such as of a vampire. When writing a literary onomastics study about Grendel and Cain descendants, Thalia Feldman wrote that Grendel's “behavior has been contaminated by his ogreish Germanic kin, his remains in essence a descendant of Old Testament Cain, a man, a vicious, feral, degenerate, who murders men and cannibalizes them in their hall” (Feldman 4). This presents the fact that Grendel was in fact a man yet because of his birth from Cain's emotions due to him being exiled from killing his brother, Grendel is seen as a monster

and has anger problems similar to his father. I intend to argue that Grendel has exhibited distinctive characteristics of a vampire and by being a night walker, bloodthirsty, and a descendant of Cain.
Grendel has ever only dared to tread into the mead-hall of Heorot, only at night while everyone is asleep, so they never had their weapons with them or protected by their armor. As described in the poem, the people “were hunted down by that dark death-shadow”. (Heaney 160). This reveals that Grendel was that shadow because he only attacked at night in the same
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place and killed a bunch of people. He only went at night either because he wanted to surprise his prey when they are at their weakest or to hide his true appearance so that the people could not fully describe it. Vampires as well never went in the daylight because vampire skin is highly sensitive to sun ray's and will badly burn and blister within seconds and because they are able to sneak up on their prey and drain their blood. Also written in the poem there “was panic after dark, people endured Raids in the night, riven by terror” (Heaney 192-193). That these raids happened very frequently yet no one knew how to stop Grendel because they never encountered someone like him and it was at night so they couldn't see a point of weakness and continued to live through this torture. As well as they wouldn't know how to stop a vampire because they only roamed through the night and they haven't had this kind of problem before, succumbing to its wrath without a method of destroying it. This is not the only instance of Grendel having vampiric traits in the poem.
Additionally, the way Grendel attacked the people in the mead-hall was very peculiar yet monsterous.

The poem emphasizes the brutal death of a warrior when Grendel “bit into his bone-lappings, bolted down his blood” (Heaney 741). This brings up the question of why did Grendel drink his blood instead of just ripping them apart, killing more people to eradicate them if he dislikes them so much since he continues to go back to the hall every single night for months. Vampires as well completely drain their victims of their blood before moving to the next so that the person can't report what happened to them and rat the vampire out. The poem also reads that when Grendel attacks the mead-hall he rips open “the mouth of the building, maddening for blood” (Heaney 724). This reveals that he had a thirst for blood such as a vampire would have and needs to refill with blood in order to quench it and remain alive, so that's why he keeps

going
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back every night so he can regain his strength so that he can function during the day until he has to feast at night to refill again so that he can regain his strength to fight against the warriors with on a daily basis. This is the second implication of Grendel being a vampire and there's still more.
Lastly, the final connection between Grendel and vampires is that they are both considered descendants of Cain. When Heaney states that “Cain got no good from committing that murder Because the Almighty made him anathema 110 And out of the curse of his exile there sprang Ogres and elves and evil phantoms” (109-112). This is the birth of Grendel from Cain's curse as well as other creatures that weren't identified in the poem. This also shows how Grendel behaves towards others due to his father's anger. His curse he had only created evil entities to arise from the underworld that will cause destruction on earth. Feldman describes that “the thyrs [vampires] inhabited the fens and marshes. Indeed, it appears that these Anglo-Saxon descendants of Cain and their other relatives were much more at home by waters on earth” (Feldman 10). Fens and marsh areas that include plants and more water, so its ideal place to live for its resources. This suggests that it's possible that Cain's descendants could have included vampires because they both liked to inhabit areas with more water, during the time frame of the poem. It also suggests that Grendel could be a vampire if vampires are a descendant of Cain because he is not considered your average description of a monster and is considered to have a manly physique.
Furthermore, we must question the fact that Grendel has some strange characteristic that people make him out to be a monster rather a man, is it because he's a night walker, or bloodthirsty, or rather he's a descendant of Cain. Maybe we didn't think someone who isn't human can resemble a man and the last resort is that they are a monster yet don't define what kind of monster. I encourage everyone to question what a monster is to you and think about the
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next time you consider someone a monster and put yourself in their shoes and see how you feel.