SOURCE: “Beowulf and Grettis Saga: An Excursion,” in Saga-Book, Vol. XIX, Part 4, 1977, pp. 347-57.

In the following essay, Turville-Petre compares and contrasts several specific episodes in the Grettis Saga with comparable ones in Beowulf.

Beowulf pursues Grendel's mother into her lair, deep below the water.¹ Grettir plunges under a waterfall, to reach the habitat of a troll-woman. Each of them destroys the enemy, after great struggles.

So we have two works, separated by 500 years or more; and in each of them the hero overcomes a visitant from the other-world, in basically similar circumstances.

Direct influence of the poem on the author of the saga is easily ruled out. Even if he could have read the poem, the saga writer could not possibly have constructed his account from this source. Yet there are striking similarities, in general and in detail. We have to ask in what kind of literary...