ShmoopTube

Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.

Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos


Beowulf Videos 9 videos

All About Beowulf as a Translated Piece of Literature
6760 Views

Old English is just English, right? Can’t be more difficult than reading Shakespeare, right? Hah. Yeah...no. Click on the video to find why tra...

All About Beowulf's Historical Context
17085 Views

Who is it about? Who told it? Who wrote it? Who are we? What’s the meaning of life? Do you know the Muffin Man? All these answers and more can be...

Beowulf and Material Goods
12461 Views

The characters in Beowulf knew the importance of bling. Watch the video to learn more about the place of material goods in the wonderful world of B...

See All

Beowulf Summary 84106 Views


Share It!


Description:

Beowulf slew Grendel, his mother, and a dragon, and he still managed to stay humble. He told us once that he even got a big, shiny award for being so humble once.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:00

Beowulf- a la shmoop you know him you love him

00:08

now put your hands together for the most epic hero the world has ever seen. we're [man in boxing ring]

00:13

talking about Beowulf. sorry sometimes I get carried away here.

00:17

but seriously I'm amazing all those Game of Thrones guys where do

00:22

you think they learn their tricks. so yeah I'll toot my own horn toot toot

00:26

and I'll toot it better than that hack Louis Armstrong .yeah well you know what [man blows on trumpet]

00:31

else I can do better than Louis? slay monsters. yeah well to be fair Louie has

00:36

never tried that. but still. well King Hrothgar of the Danes knew who to call

00:41

to deal with his little monster problem. well he was having a terrible time with

00:45

this demon monster thing named Grendel. well Grendel was a real tough customer [monster pictured]

00:50

this thing liked to rip people apart and eat them. definitely not the kind of guy

00:54

you'd invite to a picnic. now unless you wanted to end up on the menu there. now

00:59

froth gar and his fellow Danes knew anything about monster slaying well none [king reads a book]

01:03

of this would have been a big deal but they didn't. losers. lucky for them I

01:07

Beowulf the greatest hero of all time showed up with a squad of my fellow

01:11

gigot's. no I owed for Hrothgar favor because

01:14

way back when he helped my pops out of a scrape. the next time Grendel came around

01:18

I took him out. and I did it without any weapons. no sword no shield. nothin. I

01:25

wrestled Grendel barehanded and ripped off his arm. why well because I knew it [man pulls off monster arm]

01:30

it look way cool or in the inevitable movie version of my life. spoiler alert. I

01:34

was right. so Grendel ran off into the woods bled out and died. let's hope he

01:39

wasn't an endangered species or anything. to celebrate my victory we had a huge

01:43

party in Heorot, Hrothgar's mead-hall we partied like it was 9. and you know [people drink beer]

01:49

went until we passed out. and I turned off all my alarms. well nothing was

01:53

standing between sleep and me. well nothing but Grendel's demon mom

01:57

who showed up and attacked us during the night. well let me tell you something,

02:01

nothing wakes you up faster than a terrifying demon mom. seriously forget [man in front of several cups of coffee]

02:06

coffee try demon mom. turns out she was little upset about me dismembering her

02:12

baby boy. go figure. we managed to scare her off but we

02:16

figured it was best to go ahead and nip this new problem in the bud so we

02:20

tracked her to her secret lair which happened to be a cave under a lake. I'm

02:23

guessing it was never featured in good cavekeeping. well once again was up to [monster in lair]

02:27

old Beowulf to take care of the problem so I swam down to her moldy cave grabbed

02:31

a sword from her pile of treasure and well kill her. no big deal even if her

02:35

poisonous demon blood did melt the sword. and yeah I guess it's not good form [sword disappears]

02:40

to kill someone in their home but you know you know manners not really my

02:43

thing. after that well it was finally time to head home to Gatland where

02:48

eventually I ended up being king, because have you been listening I'm awesome.

02:53

things were cool for 50 years until a thief woke up a local dragon by trying [man snatches cup]

02:58

to steal a cup of coffee from the Dragon's Lair. dragons are major hoarders

03:02

and they don't take kindly to people taking their stuff. so the dragon did its

03:06

dragon thing and burned down tons of villages. yeah hello Game of Thrones

03:09

theme everyone was like go kill the dragon you stud. so I took 11 of my best [woman talks to man with crown]

03:18

guys and went to kill the thing. well turns out these guys weren't nearly as

03:21

awesome as I thought. they saw the dragon and all but one ran away. come on guys

03:26

even Louie Armstrong I would have been more useful! well I ended up killing the

03:30

dragon anyway but I was wounded in the process and that's how I Beowulf the [man falls down]

03:34

bestest handsomest funniest smartest and humblest guy to ever have live, died. yeah

03:41

they built me a huge funeral mound full of treasure which was nice and to be

03:45

honest being killed slaying a literal dragon well that's a way to go. yeah that [man pictured with dragon]

03:50

works beat that Louie Armstrong.

Related Videos

The Importance of Being Earnest Summary
123039 Views

They say that honesty is the best policy, but Jack lies about his identity and still gets the girl. Does that mean we should all lie to get what we...

The Giver Summary
105893 Views

Ever wish you could remember everything that you ever studied? How about everything that everyone has ever studied? Yeah, pretty sure our brains ju...

Invisible Man (Ellison)
1818 Views

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is an American classic. Hope you're not expecting any exciting shower scenes though. It's not that kind of book.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
1256 Views

Do not go gentle into that good night. In fact, if it's past your curfew, don't go at all into that good night. You just stay in your good bed and...

Quotes: A fool's paradise
294 Views

Find out the meaning behind "a fool's paradise."