SparkNotes: Grendel: Quiz

1. For how many years does Grendel’s battle with the humans last?

(A) Twelve

(B) Twenty

(C) Thirty

(D) Fifty

2. Who or what is Hart?

(A) The Shaper’s real name

(B) Hrothgar’s son

(C) Hrothgar’s meadhall

(D) Grendel’s cave

3. What do the humans think Grendel is when they find him in the tree?

(A) A strange piece of fruit

(B) A bear

(C) A tree spirit

(D) An ape

4. What is the dragon’s final piece of advice to Grendel?

(A) Read great works of literature

(B) Learn to meditate

(C) Run away from home

(D) Find gold and sit on it

5. Who is Scyld Shefing?

(A) Grendel’s mother

(B) An ancestor of Hrothgar

(C) The author of Beowulf

(D) The god of the Danes

6. What instrument does the Shaper play?

(A) The harp

(B) The flute

(C) The lyre

(D) The lute

7. How does Grendel reach the dragon?

(A) The Shaper’s song points him there

(B) His mother tells him

(C) He sees the humans going to the dragon

(D) The darkness pulls him toward it

8. What type of animal is Grendel observing at the opening of the book?

(A) A ram

(B) A bull

(C) A goat

(D) A unicorn

9. Who, according to the Shaper, is Grendel’s ancestor?

(A) Scyld Shefing

(B) The dragon

(C) Cain

(D) Abel

10. What term does the dragon use to describe the nature of Grendel’s relationship to the humans?

(A) “Brute existent”

(B) “Natural enemy”

(C) “Distant kin”

(D) “Mutual distaste”

11. What objects does Grendel throw at Unferth in the meadhall?

(A) Knives

(B) Apples

(C) Rocks

(D) Books

12. What are Wealtheow’s people called?

(A) Vikings

(B) Scyldings

(C) Helmings

(D) Danes

13. How does Hrothgar come to be married to Wealtheow?

(A) Grendel brings her to him

(B) Unferth brings her to him

(C) She is a peace offering from a rival king

(D) She met him through one of his thanes

14. Who is Breca?

(A) Wealtheow’s husband before Hrothgar

(B) The Shaper’s assistant

(C) The dragon

(D) Beowulf’s childhood friend, whom he defeated in a swimming contest

15. Who is the only person seemingly happy about Ork’s vision of the Destroyer?

(A) Wealtheow

(B) Grendel

(C) Hrothgar

(D) The fourth priest

16. What does Grendel take “Warovvish” to mean?

(A) “Wear this”

(B) “Beware the fish”

(C) “What I wish”

(D) “Brute existent”

17. What keeps climbing up the cliff, even after Grendel kills it with stones?

(A) The goat

(B) The ram

(C) The dragon

(D) The bull

18. How, in Grendel’s estimation, do the Geats appear when they first arrive in Denmark?

(A) Dead

(B) Lively

(C) Friendly

(D) Boastful

19. Where does Grendel find himself at the very end of the novel?

(A) In his mother’s cave

(B) At the Shaper’s grave

(C) At the edge of the same cliff as in Chapter 1

(D) At the tree that trapped him in Chapter 2

20. How, in Grendel’s eyes, does Beowulf manage to best him?

(A) God helps Beowulf

(B) The dragon has given Beowulf a charm

(C) It is merely an accident

(D) Beowulf is smarter than Grendel

21. What does Beowulf force Grendel to do during their final battle?

(A) Bow down to Hrothgar

(B) Apologize to the Danes

(C) Say a prayer

(D) Make up a song about walls

22. What does Grendel decide when the bull starts attacking him?

(A) That bulls are just like humans

(B) That he alone exists

(C) That he is never leaving the mere again

(D) That he is going to kill the bull

23. What school of philosophy does Red Horse best embody?

(A) Anarchism

(B) Altruism

(C) Existentialism

(D) Objectivism

24. Who is plotting to overthrow Hrothgar in a revolution?

(A) Freawaru

(B) Hrothulf

(C) Ingeld

(D) Hygmod

25. Where do Grendel and his mother live?

(A) In an underground cave

(B) In a lake of snakes

(C) On a mountaintop

(D) In a tree trunk