Beowulf’s decision to fight Grendel without a weapon has a touch of irony. Although he may be motivated by a sense of fair play, as well as a touch of pride, Beowulf is unknowingly doing himself a favor when he chooses to confront the ogre without a sword. We later learn that Grendel is protected by a magic spell and cannot be injured by man’s weapons. But Beowulf does not know this. In a very practical sense, Beowulf’s desire for honest glory protects him. He follows this pronouncement with a humble recognition of his possible defeat by Grendel. The graphic details of that possibility, along with Hrothgar’s gory description (484 ff.) of the mead-hall after his own warriors were slaughtered by Grendel, underline the seriousness of Beowulf’s undertaking.
One of Hrothgar’s top retainers, Unferth, interrupts the celebration to insult Beowulf and challenge his reputation. When Beowulf was a youth, apparently during his adolescence, he engaged in a swimming match on the open sea with another boy, named Breca. Unferth asserts that Beowulf was vain and foolish to enter such a dangerous contest and that Breca proved the stronger, defeating Beowulf in seven nights. If Beowulf couldn’t win a swimming match, Unferth concludes, then he is surely no match for Grendel, who, in addition to presenting formidable physical challenge, lives in a lake or at the bottom of a lake. Swimming may prove essential if Beowulf is forced to pursue the enemy.
Beowulf’s response to Unferth reveals a good deal about the hero’s noble character and is a remarkable example of rhetoric as well as poetic imagery. Beowulf’s response is composed and in control. First he isolates the problem; Unferth has been dipping deeply into the mead bowl: “What a great deal, Unferth my friend, / full of beer, you have said about Breca, / told of his deeds” (530–532). Having addressed the issue, Beowulf calmly but strongly counters Unferth’s factual assertions. He concedes that, as boys will do (at least boys in Geatland), he and Breca exchanged boasts and entered into a dangerous swimming contest on the open sea. They wore body armor for protection, and each carried a sword. They swam together five nights, not seven. Breca could not pull away, and Beowulf would not abandon the other boy. Rough seas finally drove them apart. Sea monsters attacked Beowulf and attempted to drag him down. By dawn, he had killed nine of them. Fate (Wyrd) saved him, but only because it was not his time and he had fought courageously.
