I see you've brought me treasure.
Show yourself!
What are you?
Are you the one they call Beowulf?
The Bee-Wolf.
The bear.
Such a strong man you are.
With the strength of a king.
The king you will one day become.
What do you know of me, demon?
I know that underneath your glamour
you're as much a monster as my son, Grendel.
My glamour?
One needs glamour to become a king.
A man like you could own the greatest tale ever sung.
Your story would live on
when everything now alive is dust.
Beowulf.
It has been a long time
since a man has come to visit me.
I need no sword to kill you.
Of course you don't, my love.
You took a son from me.
Give me a son, brave thane.
Stay with me.
Love me.
Love me
and I shall weave you riches beyond imagination.
I shall make you
the greatest king that ever lived.
As long as you hold me in your heart
and this golden horn remains in my keeping,
you will forever be king.
Forever strong,
mighty
and all powerful.
This I promise.
This I swear.
My Lord.
It's dead, my Lady.
When I finished off Grendel's monstrous mother,
I severed the brute's head.
Our curse is lifted.
Our curse is lifted. Odin be praised!
Beowulf be praised!
Our curse is lifted.
Take this out of my sight. Unferth!
Into the sea, quickly.
I plunged Hrunting into Grendel's mother's chest
and when I pulled the sword free from her corpse,
the creature sprang back to life,
so I plunged the sword back into the hag's chest and there it will stay.
Till Ragnarok, huh?
And our people shall be grateful till the Ragnarok.
More mead, my Lord?
Aye.
And the drinking horn, do you have it?
No.
I knew the greedy witch desired it, so I threw it into the swamp.
And when she followed, that's where I struck,
with the mighty sword Hrunting.
When she was dead, I looked for it, but it was gone forever.
Then find our hero another cup, my love.
First, the hero and I must talk.
Beowulf.
So you brought back the head of Grendel.
What about the head of the mother?
With her dead and cold in the bog,
is it not enough to return one monster's head?
Did you kill her?
Would you like to hear the story of my struggle against this monstrous hag?
She's no hag, Beowulf. We both know that.
But answer me, did you kill her?
Would I have been able to escape her, had I not?
Grendel is dead. That's all that matters to me.
He can bother me no more.
The mother, "the hag," she's not my curse.
Not anymore.
Listen to me!
Because my Lord Beowulf is a mighty hero
and because he killed the demon Grendel
and laid its mother in her grave...
- To Beowulf! - Long live Beowulf!
...and because I have no heir,
I have no sons,
I declare that on my death,
all that I possess, my kingdom,
my hall of sadness and shame,
and even my lovely young Queen,
my Wealthow,
everything, everything
I leave to this, our hero.
- But, my Lord... - I have spoken!
I have spoken!
When I am gone,
Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow, shall be king!
Beowulf!
My Lord.
Everything in its time, Beowulf.
Hrothgar!
He must have fallen.
- All hail King Beowulf. - All hail King Beowulf.
All hail King Beowulf.
King Beowulf.
Archers.
Archers!
This is not battle, Wiglaf.
This is slaughter.
The Frisians want to make themselves heroes, my Lord.
They want the bards to sing of their deeds.
It's going to be a short song.
Now, can you blame them?
Your legend is known from the high seas
and the snow barriers to the great island kingdom.
You are the monster slayer.
We men are the monsters now.
The time of heroes is dead, Wiglaf.
The Christ God has killed it,
leaving humankind with nothing but weeping martyrs,
fear and shame.
Show me to Beowulf! Show me to King Beowulf!
Come on, Frisian. Speak up!
Leave him!
You think it sport to mock your opponents in this fashion?
Let him die quickly, with some honor still intact.
Coward!
Kill me yourself!
Balls! The king must never engage in direct battle.
Kill the invader now! Do it quickly! Put his head on a spear.
Stop!
My Lord, the king must not engage in direct battle.
Let him up.
You want your name in the Song of Beowulf?
You think it should end with me killed by some Frisian raider with no name?
I'm Finn of Frisia
and my name shall be remembered forever.
Only if you kill me!
Otherwise, you're nothing.
You think you're the first to try to kill me, or the hundredth?
Well, let me tell you something, Frisian.
The gods will not allow my death by your feeble blade.
The gods will not allow me to die by a sword, or be taken by the sea.
The gods will not let me pass in my sleep, ripe with age!
Plant your ax here, Finn of Frisia. Take my life.
Someone give him a sword, or I'll...
You'll what? Kill me?
Well, kill me! Do it! Kill me! Kill me!
You know why you can't kill me, my friend?
'Cause I died many, many years ago when I was young.
Give him a gold piece and send him home.
He has a story to tell.
Your Majesty?
Are you hurt?
Not a scratch.
So beautiful.
And so young.
You know, Ursula, when I was young,
I used to think being a king was about battling every morning
and counting the gold and loot in the afternoon
and swiving beautiful women every evening.
But now, well, nothing is as good as it should have been.
Not even the "swiving a beautiful woman every night" part, Your Majesty?
Well, some nights, Ursula, some nights.
Perhaps tonight?
No, tonight, I feel my age upon me.
Tomorrow, after the celebrations.
We can't forget what tomorrow is, can we now?
Your day. When the Song of Beowulf is told
of how you lifted the darkness from the land.
And the day after, we celebrate the birth of Hallend Christ.
I see you've survived.
Alas, my Queen,
the Frisian invaders have been pushed into the sea.
You are not a widow,
yet.
How comforting, my husband.
Hail, Beowulf! Hail, Beowulf!
Unferth.
You're not celebrating your King's glory tonight?
I have something for the King.
What is it?
I said I have something for the King.
- Show it to me. - I will not.
You will show it to me first.
Bollocks, Wiglaf.
I'll show it first to Beowulf. The King needs to see it.
The King
needs to see what?
Lost and now found.
A gift fit for a king.
Do you recognize it?
Where did you find this?
On the moors. My slave Cain found it on the barren hill where nothing grows.
I beat him for treading near such an unholy place.
My Lord,
isn't this...
So, Lord Beowulf,
it's come back to you, after all these years.
My Lord, this is the slave who found it.
Please, please don't kill me!
Where did you find this treasure?
I'm sorry I ran away, Master. But please don't hurt me no more.
- Answer your King! - Stop!
Stop.
Where?
Up, up on the moors.
But I was gonna bring it back, Master. I swear.
Is that all?
No demon? No witch?
No woman?
Hail, Beowulf! Hail, Beowulf!
Hail, Beowulf!
Look at you. You're nothing,
an empty nothing.
Come forth!
Show yourself!
Even with all your riches,
your kingdom, your power, your glory
and your women.
Which one do you think I should kill first,
your pretty little bedwarmer,
or your wise Queen?
What are you?
I'm something you left behind,
Father!
Another restless night?
It's all right, girl.
I'm not going to eat you.
He has bad dreams.
They've been coming more often.
He's a king, and kings have a lot on their conscience.
He calls your name in his sleep.
Does he?
I believe he still holds you in his heart.
Do you?
I often wonder
what happened.
To us?
Too many secrets.
God, help us.
What? What do you want of me?
I have a message for my father.
Tell me! What did this?
I saw our whole village burn. Children screaming as they died!
I saw it, Your Majesty, vomiting fire and smoke!
Damn you! What was it?
A dragon!
- It's Unferth, my Lord! - Unferth.
You say a dragon did this? Stop!
You had an agreement.
You would not be harmed.
But now the golden horn has returned to you.
The agreement is ended.
Who? Who said that?
"The sins of the fathers!"
That's the last thing I heard.
The last thing before my family was burned alive!
The sins of the fathers!
Sins of the fathers!
The sins of the fathers!
Take up your positions along the northern edge of the great gorge.
It is our only hope if I fail.
My Lord.
Don't go, I beg you!
You are free. I release you.
Find a good man and bear him children. But bear him a son.
I don't want anyone else. I want you.
I am not the man you think me to be!
You're a great man! And a hero! This I know to be true.
Then you are as foolish as the rest of them!
Very impressive, dear.
But the armor suited you better when you were younger.
I'm sure it did.
Why don't you take that poor girl
and live out your remaining years in peace?
Let some young hero save us.
What?
And let the nightmare start all over again?
No. I visited this horror upon my kingdom.
- I must be the one to finish her. - Her.
Was she so beautiful, Beowulf?
A beauty so costly?
Beautiful, and full of fine promises.
I was weak.
I am sorry.
So, so sorry.
I have always loved you, my Queen.
And I you.
Keep a memory of me,
not as a king or a hero,
but as a man,
fallible and flawed.
This is the place.
Where you slayed Grendel's mother.
Wiglaf, I have no sons,
and if this demon kills me, I have arranged with the heralds
that you shall be king.
Don't speak of such things, my Lord.
Great friend, there is something you should know.
Nay! There is nothing I should know.
You are Beowulf. Beowulf the mighty, the hero!
The slayer and destroyer of demons!
Now, let us kill this flying devil where it sleeps
and get on with our bloody lives!
- Do you want me to go in with you? - No.
Good.
Beowulf.
It has been a long time.
Take your damned horn and leave my land in peace.
Too late, my love.
Odin's swifan balls!
It's heading for Herot!
Now!
Hrothgar.
Come on, come on! Come on! Come on!
Damn you!
I'll have your lizard head on a spike!
No!
My Lord!
No!
Over here! Attend the Queen.
- Attend the Queen. - Attend the Queen.
I told you we were too old to be heroes.
Let's get you to a healer.
Not this time, old friend.
You are Beowulf.
A little thing like this isn't going to finish you off.
Do you hear her?
I hear nothing.
Grendel's mother, my son's mother, my...
- No, my Lord. - My...
You killed Grendel's mother when we were young.
They sing of it.
Too late for lies, Wiglaf.
Too late.
He was
the bravest of us.
He was the prince
of all warriors.
His name will live forever.
His song shall be sung forever.