Beowulf and the Dragon si the last of the three epic battles in Beowulf’s saga, and the last of the illustrations I made for this project.

What I LOVED about working on this set of illustrations is that in each one Beowulf is in a completely different situation or moment of his life, so I had to account for that in the design.

In the first battle Beowulf is in his prime: when he faces Grendel he is young, bold and cocky, and he goes as far as engaging him without weapons and armour, because, you know, he is too cool for those.

In the second battle, soon after he has defeated Grendel, he is obviously still young, but he is now all geared up, as Grendel’s mother is not an enemy to underestimate.

In this last battle he is an old man, so I obviously had to paint a different version of his face.
He has reigned as a wise king, regarded by everyone as a great hero, so I wanted to convey some degree of solemnity in his figure.

At this point in his life he knows he is too weak to defeat the dragon, nonetheless he dons his armour, gathers his trusted warriors and walks towards his doom as if it were just another Tuesday.

It will be his best warrior to finish off the dragon, eventually.
However, even though an old man, Beowulf is still cool enough to pull this kind of tricks.

Now, there was a funny exchange of emails with Tanner of Legends, Myths and Whiskey when I delivered the final illustration.
His feedback was pretty much “It’s cool! But it’s wrong! Beowulf and the Dragon face each other in the Dragon’s lair”.

And mine was “No! YOU are wrong! I read the book! The battle happens outside the lair, in the forest!”

So we sent each other quotes from whatever our sources were, and we soon came to the conclusion that we were using two different translations, one of which was quite blurry about the location of the battle.

So, we eventually decided to leave the background as it was.
I had messed up with his gear though, as in the first version I had painted an wooden shield, whereas in both translations it’s quite clear that Beowulf chooses his best iron shield before he leaves his hall to face the dragon.

For the literature lovers I’m pasting the passage that the illustration refers to.

Mine, by Strafford Riggs, 1933:

I go alone to engage this dragon. You shall remain here at the clearing’s edge in readiness to stand by me in case I fail. For I am an old man now, and it comes to me, as in a dream, that this will be my last adventure, my final fight.

And then:

For a moment there was a death-like stillness in the night. No sound came from the cave, and no steamy breath, and no dull glare of fire. Then with sudden roaring that caused the night to splinter and the earth to quiver in horrified response, the lordliest dragon in all the world rushed from its lair.

Tanner’s, by Ernest Kirtlan (1913?):

Then in a fury the Prince of the Weder-Geats
let a torrent of words escape from
his breast and the stout-hearted one
stormed. And his war-clear voice re-
sounded under the hoar cliffs. And
hatred was stirred, for the guardian of
the hoard recognized well the voice of
Beowulf. And that was no time to be
seeking friendship. And the breath of
the monster, the hot battle-sweat, came
forth from the rock at the first and the
earth resounded. The warrior, the Lord

of the Geats, raised his shield under the
barrow against the terrible sprite.

Funny how things can change from one translator to another.
After all, even Tolkien wrote an essay on how difficult an undertaking it was to translate something like Beowulf.

by Paolo Puggioni

One Response

1. FRASAR says:

   August 31, 2016 at 13:43

   Both version are more or less correct. The fight must have happened at the edge of the lair, but in the open. The Dragon came out, but no much, out of the rock since the warrior was there waiting for him. The painting represents that moment perfectly.

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