Beowulf by Neil Gaiman Read Free Book Online

too huge.
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    41 INT. THE GREAT CAVE - GRENDEL’S LAIR - EVENING
    41
    Grendel is SINGING to itself, a slow, sad, tuneless sort of noise. It is taking a soldier apart, bit by bit, and throwing the bits of body into the water. EELS seize the fragments of flesh and disappear back under the water with them. Grendel LAUGHS delightedly at the eels.
    GRENDEL
    No more. You get fat! Fat fish! More tomorrow.
    Then Grendel walks over to the side of the cave, and puts the warrior’s head on a spike. He hangs the rest of the body from a hook. He moves awkwardly. While Grendel is not human, if he were human, he would be retarded, perhaps brain-damaged. He is honestly a sweet and gentle person, except in the matter of eating people, and then only when driven mad with noise.
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    Grendel begins to play with the spear (and the head on it) as if it were a puppet.
    GRENDEL
    (pretending he’s the voice of the Thane’s head)
    Da-dee-da! Da-dee-da! Who’s laughing now?!
    There is a RUSTLE behind him. Grendel is alarmed; he drops the head on the spear and his fingernails shoot out and become sharp claws. His eyes narrow.
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    EXTREME CLOSE ON: Grendel’s mother’s lips. She has full lips, tinged with gold -- almost like fish-scales. Her lips are not the lips of an old woman. We do not know, yet, whether or not they are the lips of a monster.
    GRENDEL’S MOTHER
    (a bodiless whisper)
    Grendel.
    Grendel soothes a little, his nails recess back into his fingers.
    GRENDEL
    Mother? You should not be here. You do not come here. We are too close to the worlds of man.
    GRENDEL’S MOTHER
    I had an evil dream, my son. I dreamed that you were hurt, and killed. I dreamed that you were calling out for me, and I could not come to you. And then they butchered you.
    GRENDEL
    I am not dead. I am happy. Look, happy Grendel.
    He does an awkward, shuffling dance around the cave, SINGING as he does.
    GRENDEL
    (singing, tunelessly)
    Happy happy, happy happy, happy happy, happy happy…
    GRENDEL’S MOTHER
    You must not go to the hall tonight. You have killed too many of them.
    GRENDEL
    Grendel is stronger. Grendel is bigger. Grendel will eat their flesh and drink their blood and break their bones.
    GRENDEL’S MOTHER
    Please, my son. Do not go to them.
    GRENDEL
    (makes a whining sound)
    Oh…
    GRENDEL’S MOTHER
    Please. Promise me this.
    He sulks, defeated.
    GRENDEL
    I swear. I shall not go to them.
    GRENDEL’S MOTHER
    Even if they make the noises?
    Grendel hesitates, then nods, reluctantly, as if it’s being jerked out of him, an awkward little boy promising his mother something.
    GRENDEL’S MOTHER
    Good boy.
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    42 EXT. HEROT - VILLAGE - DAY
    42
    The sun hangs in the west of the sky, but is still an hour away from setting.
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    We are looking at the hall from outside. Smoke is coming from the chimneys (or from the holes in the roof that let smoke out). We can hear, MUFFLED HARP MUSIC, the sound of MEN TALKING, and the CLINKING OF GOBLETS.
    43 INT. HEROT - MEAD HALL - DAY
    43
    Inside the hall, the party is just beginning. It’s not the same party as before, however. For a start there are much fewer males, even counting Beowulf’s 14 Thanes. For second, everyone seems more subdued and miserable than they did at the previous party -- like a party at a funeral. Still, a HARP IS PLAYING, and people are sitting at long tables, and maidens are pouring golden mead into cups.
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    Hrothgar is sitting at his throne, which has been carried into the hall by FOUR BRAWNY THANES.
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    Wealthow is sitting on the side of the throne, and Hrothgar’s hands are, absentmindedly, stroking her hair.
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    Unferth is behind and to the right of the throne.
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    Beowulf is walking about the hall, deep in thought, in another world entirely.
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    Hondshew is staring at Yrsa, the plum girl, who is pouring mead somewhere across the hall.
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    Wiglaf is talking to the other 13