by G.J. Brillante

Content Warnings: Murder, Violence and Implied Assault

The giantess could hear the tranquil song of the lake echoing throughout the underwater cave, her home, as she watched the reflection of the blue water dance across the walls. By listening with more than her ears, she devoted her entire soul to the unspoken words—the song of silence.

(Hush, hush, shh) I’ll give you a home
(Hush, hush, shh) by the whispering foam
(Hush, hush, shh) of the lake throne
(Hush, hush, shh) from our dreams sown.

Her long and sharp nails, like a bird’s talons, sank into her skin as she lay as still as a corpse on her sheepskin bed. Her chest rose and trembled while she drank in the cold and stale air, allowing it to temporarily occupy herself, only for it to burst from her gaping mouth—the pressure too great to be contained.

(Hush, hush, shh) My sole child be
(Hush, hush, shh) carried by dreams and free
(Hush, hush, shh) while you rest.
(Hush, hush, shh) My sweet child, goodbye.

As the song kept playing in her mind she tried to give herself to the voiceless echo of the dancing water, for here she was alone. Nothing could disturb her, save for her mind, because her home was deep in the bowels of a lake where no man would dare go without great need. And what man would have a need so great as to brave the depths of a lake festering with the hatred of surly sea-dragons and serpents whom man had driven from the surface following the banishment of the giants? There was no need for any man to risk his fragile life in combat with the sea-dragons and serpents except to brew more misery by adding to the echoing songs of woe.

Still, the giantess could not sleep. The song did not comfort her today.

“Oh sword, fall not in my hands but on my heart.”

She glanced up at the pointed blade as large and thick as an elephant’s tusk that hung above her head. The hilt of the sword had shining sun kissed gemstones. It was her prized possession, her sole heirloom passed down to her by her kin when the giants, her forefathers, had roamed the surface land of the West-Danes. The sword had been her sunlight ever since she was forced to flee into the dark of the marsh where she was hunted by a man banished from the halls and hearths of men. The thief had robbed her and left her with an unasked for token of men’s wicked cruelty. She had then turned to the lake, resolved on death, but the song of silence saved her and her son’s life.

The recollection of her past was a sword in her mind, hewing the boundary between good and evil, mother and monstrous. However, no memory of hardship could compare to the feelings she was now experiencing.

Loneliness weighed upon her as her scars awoke and refused to rest. Her raw flesh was coated in thick clumps of her own blood from her nails sinking into her arms; yet, no matter how tight she held herself to feel an embrace, she felt nothing. There was only the cold sting of her tears kissing her cheeks farewell and a fiery pain burning in her heart. The pain was worse than she had ever endured, and she had suffered wounds before. She was marked with the honor marks of battle, white scars surrounded by crusts of mineral bathed dirt, that bloodthirsty warriors had etched onto her skin along with the damning title she was given by the men who feared her strength: Monster.

Yet, she did not feel that she was a monster despite what the Shieldings or Geats claimed. Although she was the daughter of giants, she was not numb to the suffering of humans. She had never killed before this day.

She had always aspired to save life, healing the sea-dragons and serpents of their physical hurts with her poultices produced from her frail underwater garden. She was a mother, and had given life. She was a mother, and she had watched the life she had birthed die. She was a mother, and with her own hands she had torn the life out of another mother’s son but could not keep the life she had stolen, nor could she restore it to the frail body of the poor Dane.

She had not even tried to kill the man. She had let her pain and anger guide her to the grand hall of Heorot, and, in a wild wrath, she had burst into the celebrated house of heroes to demand her son’s killer; however, as swift as her anger had come, it had vanished. It was the flighty sensation of panic that made her seize the closest Shielding and flee from the society of man before they could stab her through the heart.

When she had seized the man, she had no intention of killing him. She had no need for a wergild and had only intended to question him to learn the name of her son’s murderer. However, the man’s unguarded flesh was too fragile to withstand the grip of her talon-like nails that pierced his body, and, in an attempt to hush his cries, cut off his head.

“Oh sword, woe-begotten of fell power, my hands are marked with blood while you remain clean. I should have cursed you rather than filled my son’s head with the fantasies of your long dead masters. Yet, for all that you stand for, you still hang on the wall of my home.

“You have outlived my son and shine purer than the unclean marks which stained him. And you still dare to gleam as if to say, ‘Take me up and let me seize glory and honor!’ by your desire to fall into my unclean hands and hew mortal life. Yet, foolish sword, you should know that glory is hollow and honor is empty for a giantess banished from man’s society. What honor is there to be had when your title is ‘Monster?’”

She rose from her bed and drew away from the sword. Her vision was overtaken by her tears as her legs gave way and she collapsed before a figure stretched across the floor. Her hands tried to grasp the figure’s hand, but she clasped only empty air.

There was no hand to hold, not even an arm for that matter.

I could have saved you. If only I knew…

“Grendel!” she screamed.

She could feel the coldness of his skin as she cradled his body. No song of hers could reach him now. There was only the song of silence.

She had thought her son was content until she discovered too late that his sighs had masked his longing for another life. Oh, she had heard the rumors that Heorot had welcomed a great warrior from Geatland, but she had not suspected that the warrior had come to slay Grendel. Thus, it had been a terrible shock to her when she saw her son return bloodied from a late night outing. He was brought to her cave on the back of sea serpents, his legs too weak to stand, for the giant in him gave way first while his yearning to be human lasted until the very end. At once, the giantess had rushed to her small garden and prepared a poultice. She remembered the way Grendel had watched her as she weaved spells in vain while denying that her son had already lost too much blood, too much of the blood that had cast him out below mist and moorland, the very blood that made him both of man and an enemy of man. He had looked at her then with glimmering eyes full of destroyed hope, misbegotten spirits of woe and terror, begging to know the answer to one question only: Why?

Her lips had trembled and her voice had failed, for she was overcome with the song of silence, the song her son had been refusing to accept. Grendel had then shut his eyes, frowning with the regret that he should have lingered in Heorot to die in the company of men, the company that he had longed to belong to.

“Grendel! Come back to me.” She screamed again.

(Hush, hush, shh) I’ll give you a home

The water began to sing in a disturbed whisper as the sea-dragons cried their last tears.

(Hush, hush, shh) by the whispering foam

The song of silence reached her ears and held her for a moment, pulling the giantess away from her son’s lifeless corpse.

(Hush, hush, shh) of the lake throne

She stood before her bed in a matter of seconds and glared at her reflection in the mirror of the sword.

(Hush, hush, shh) from our dreams sown.

“I am ready to do what you ask,” she said, swallowing fear, “but I will act with my heart, not the hatred you were forged from.”

Her hands were already marked by mortal blood, having slayed Æschere, a retainer close to King Hrothgar. Although she did not know the dead man’s name, she knew that the death of a mother’s son would again lead to the pursuit of vengeance in accordance with the ways of man. But she would be prepared.

“Let them send their best warrior.”

She was ready to embrace whatever fate would come her way. Yet, she refused to let the thirst for blood be in the forefront of her mind. Instead she chose to venture upon another avenue to settle the grief that burned inside of her. She understood that her son had taken an invaluable kind of treasure from the men of Heorot. He had taken mortal souls.

She, too, had taken a life. Yet, she was not a monster.

She would reason with the man fighting in the lake above, though she knew deep down in her dragon sized heart that the man was no ordinary warrior, for she could hear the screams of the sea-dragons and the serpents as they fell one by one. The song of silence began to die.

The water clashed against the walls of her cave. The dancing reflection became a whirlpool of chaos.

“I know who is coming!” she shouted, speaking to her sword, the sword of the giants. “And he is no regular man. He has come from afar, from Geatland, for I can picture the golden boar offering its protection to his helm. I know that symbol. I fled from it long ago! Yet, I will now make my stand. From this warrior, I will glean what a true monster is.”

She leaped upon her bed and pressed her lips to the cold blade, letting her wild reflection speak for itself before she pushed her bed aside to make room in case a fight ensued. In silence, she then crept to her kitchen and searched through the strange bottles that lined the shelves, choosing a glimmering golden vial. It was engraved with a boar’s head on a wooden cork and it was full of bubbling hope. This fey vial she placed to her trembling lips, and she drank the sweet potion crafted from the sun’s tears.

Why should I not be blessed by the golden boar and sun, too? After all she did not choose the darkness of the lake; she was forced into it.

Then, from a crude chest made of warped wood, she pulled out a whetted knife, for she knew the man who sought her was not unarmed based on the cries of the sea-dragons and serpents and the horrible screeching of a metal blade hacking at metal scales. Thus armed, Grendel’s mother knew she would not fall by any man’s weapon now.

To this knife she spoke in a soft whisper, sensing her foe sinking into the dark depths of the lake, “I will have my son’s killer see what he has taken from me. He will know my grief and I will know his.” She attached the knife to her leather belt.

The warrior was near the bottom of the lake now, having breached the realm of eternal darkness. She felt the pain the warrior’s sword had brought upon the sea-dragons as if she had been the one stabbed through the heart.

She turned around, careful not to make any more noise than a silent mouse scampering through a field. Mortal terror filled her, but she pressed on and came to the entrance of her cave where the song of silence was at its greatest. She listened for a moment before giving everything to the melancholy song, letting it take her tears as she dove into the water—into the darkness.

Her hands, like claws, stroked the water, and her feet brushed away tangled weeds. She could feel the unseen sea-dragons and serpents clawing at her side, snatching at her clothes and pulling at her hair. They were warning her to turn back. She, however, was determined to reach the mortal warrior before he reached her.

At long last, after struggling against the water, swallowing the silence, and floundering in the dark, she stumbled upon him. He was a faint sliver of gold wrestling against shadows. She looked at him then and pitied him. Yet, her pity soon turned to horror as she witnessed a red cloud surround the warrior as another serpent fell.

Red flashed before her eyes. Her entire lake seemed red with blood.

The giantess propelled herself forward, seizing the warrior while he was unaware of her. Hurriedly, she swam to her den, nails pressing against the man’s webbed mail to keep him from slipping from her grasp as she shielded him from the sea-beasts that were attacking. If it was not for her, surely the sea-dragons and serpents would have eventually overpowered the warrior and torn him to shreds. His life was in her hands.

For the first time since she had buried herself in the depths of the lake, she moved against the song of silence and entertained pleasant discord, breaking the endless dance of the water as she surfaced in her cave. She set the warrior down on the rock floor of her home and stepped back a pace to observe him.

The man had strong webbed mail and a helm blessed by gold boar-shapes that to her seemed no different than the potion she had drank or even the sheepskin she wore. He was beautiful, but so was she standing there in the darkness of her lair with her hearthfire blazing.

She was at loss for words, though, looking at the mortal man, because she had forgotten how similar mankind and giant-kind were. They had the same eyes that bore the same shadows.

By the look in the warrior’s eyes, the very gleam of his tears, the giantess knew this was the man who had killed her son. The man, likewise, saw in her eyes that she was the one who had killed Æschere. They were both trapped in an endless loop of revenge, but they were singing different songs within.

The warrior broke from the silence first. He sprung from the floor and slammed down the sharp edge of his sword on Grendel’s mother’s head, which would have been a fatal blow if it had not been for the blessing that the potion had bestowed upon her.

The giantess roared in surprise but had no time to recover from her shock before the warrior seized her shoulders and tossed her to the floor. She kicked him off of her and in the span of a heartbeat regained her stance. The man charged with his sword willingly discarded, but the giantess refused to be knocked down again. Instead, she gripped the warrior and flung him as easily as one would toss a bouquet of flowers.

The man fell. In the spur of the moment, she drew her whetted knife and prepared to take her revenge for her son’s death. Yet, she hesitated. She did not want any more blood to be spilled. She knew she could not take the life of this warrior and bestow it to her son’s lifeless corpse. She knew that Grendel was gone. And she was not a monster.

She sighed as she released the man. She then closed her eyes.

The song of silence returned to her, and she was ready to join it. She gave the song her voice, so it could be heard echoing throughout the lake and beyond. She imagined her son and herself playing under the light of the sun. He was happy and she was more than content. Grendel and her were not monsters.

Then, the warrior, Beowulf of the Geats, came charging at her, lugging the giant’s sword he had taken from the wall of her home. She could faintly hear the scratching of metal against the cold stone floor, but it sounded distant in her mind so she did not care. She had no use for heirlooms anyway. She wanted to be with her son.

Thus, she smiled, letting the knife in her hands drop as she took her final breath. Then, she was gone to find her son in a place where giants and mankind roam the heavens.

𓆟

Beowulf roared in celebration of his mortal triumph as he waved the giant’s sword, coated in blood, in the air while boasting to himself of his great victory. He then scanned the cave, searching for a worthy treasure to take back to King Hrothgar as proof that he had slayed the vile she-monster. His eyes zeroed in on a figure laying across the floor that excited him beyond rings of gold. He laughed, exclaiming that Grendel’s head was a worthy enough token.

With the giant’s sword he cut off Grendel’s head. Yet, as soon as Grendel’s blood touched the blade, it melted into a pool of red tears, leaving only the hilt of gems whose sun-like splendor was extinguished. The hearthfire, however, swelled and burst into a radiant beam of light greater than the very sun to the surface lands of the West-Danes.

Beowulf smiled while looking upon that fire and raised the hilt of the giant’s sword, boasting that the light was good and a sign that the monsters had been purged from the world. He wondered what treasure he would be given in return for Grendel’s head as he left, treading on the hollowed chest of Grendel’s mother. He did not know that the light of the hearthfire was the melancholy flames of Grendel’s mother’s dragon-heart, nor did he understand that the fire’s crackling was the laughter and cries of a mother swearing, ‘You will know the wounds of my dragon-heart before your end.’

Thus, Beowulf left the cave with the bounty of men’s glory without once stopping to listen to the unspoken song of silence at the murky lake bottom where the sea-dragons sulk no more and a lonely mother now eternally sleeps.

𓆟

(Hush, hush, shh) My sole child be
(Hush, hush, shh) carried by dreams and free
(Hush, hush, shh) while you play
(Hush, hush, shh), my son, in sunlight.

G.J. Brillante (she/her) is a warrior of words (aka a writer) and a bookdragon with a BA in English and a minor in Creative Writing. She has had a short story and a poem published in a zine. When she's not wandering in faraway worlds, she can be found playing with her dogs or crocheting. To read more of her work, you can visit her Instagram at gjb.creates.