Fitt 1
Fitt I — The Life and Death of Scyld
Scyld Scefing's funeral ship is loaded with gold and set adrift — the poem's opening image of power given, used briefly, and surrendered to the sea.
Beowulf — chapter by chapter
All 43 fitts, from the funeral ship of Scyld to the burning of Beowulf.
Beowulf is structured in 43 fitts — numbered sections of the original manuscript. The poem moves in three great arcs: Fitts I–XXI cover the voyage to Denmark, the killing of Grendel, and the return; Fitts XX–XXVII descend to the mere and Grendel's mother; Fitts XXXII–XLIII are the dragon and the funeral, fifty years later. The digressions — the Finn episode, the lay of the last survivor, the Heremod warnings — are not detours. They are the poem's argument.
Fitts I–XXI · Grendel at Heorot
Beowulf crosses the sea, waits in the dark hall, and tears the monster apart.
Fitt 2
Fitt II — Scyld's Successors — Hrothgar's Great Mead-hall
Heorot rises as the wonder of the age — and from the moor-fens, Grendel hears its songs of creation and is filled with hatred.
Fitt 3
Fitt III — Grendel the Murderer
Grendel tears thirty thanes from their sleep and rules Heorot's nights for twelve unbroken winters — no weapon can touch him, and no man dares the dark.
Fitt 4
Fitt IV — Beowulf Goes to Hrothgar's Assistance
News of Grendel's reign reaches Geatland, and Beowulf — strongest of living men — orders a ship fitted out and crosses the sea with fourteen companions.
Fitt 5
Fitt V — The Geats Reach Heorot
Beowulf speaks plainly of his errand and his lineage; the coastguard, satisfied, leads the Geats to Heorot with their boar-crested helmets flashing in the light.
Fitt 6
Fitt VI — Beowulf Introduces Himself at the Palace
A second challenge inside Heorot's walls — Beowulf names himself and requests an audience, and Wulfgar carries the message to Hrothgar's high seat.
Fitt 7
Fitt VII — Hrothgar and Beowulf
Hrothgar recognizes Beowulf's lineage and calls his arrival an act of God; Beowulf volunteers to fight Grendel barehanded, framing the outcome as the Lord's to decide.
Fitt 8
Fitt VIII — Hrothgar and Beowulf — Continued
Hrothgar tells Beowulf of Ecgtheow's old debt and describes twelve years of brave men who swore to face Grendel — and were gone before morning.
Fitt 9
Fitt IX — Unferth Taunts Beowulf
Unferth taunts Beowulf across the ale-bench, claiming Beowulf was bested by Breca in their famous swimming contest — and demanding to know how he expects to face Grendel.
Fitt 10
Fitt X — Beowulf Silences Unferth — Glee is High
Beowulf corrects Unferth's account: the sea-contest involved five nights of monster-killing, not a simple race — and Grendel, he says, would be no problem if Unferth had half the courage he claims.
Fitt 11
Fitt XI — All Sleep Save One
Beowulf removes his armor and sword to fight Grendel bare-handed; the hall sleeps; through the darkness the twilight traveler comes striding — all save one warrior wait without knowing.
Fitt 12
Fitt XII — Grendel and Beowulf
Grendel enters Heorot blazing-eyed, devours a sleeping warrior, and reaches for another — and finds himself caught in a hand-grip stronger than anything in middle-earth.
Fitt 13
Fitt XIII — Grendel is Vanquished
Swords cannot bite Grendel's hide, but Beowulf's hand-grip holds until the monster's shoulder tears; Grendel flees to the mere to die, leaving his arm hanging in Heorot.
Fitt 14
Fitt XIV — Rejoicing of the Danes
At dawn, warriors ride out to trace Grendel's death-trail to the blood-churning mere; riders race and the scop weaves Beowulf's name into new verses beside Sigmund the dragon-slayer.
Fitt 15
Fitt XV — Hrothgar's Gratitude
Hrothgar stands beneath Grendel's hanging claw and calls Beowulf the son he never had — thanking God and the hero in the same breath, promising treasure, warning of pride's consequences.
Fitt 16
Fitt XVI — Hrothgar Lavishes Gifts Upon His Deliverer
Hrothgar presents Beowulf with standard, mail-coat, helmet, sword, and eight gold-bridled horses — the poem's most elaborate scene of gift-giving as bond between king and hero.
Fitt 17
Fitt XVII — Banquet (continued) — The Scop's Song of Finn and Hnæf
The scop's lay of Finn and Hnæf — a failed peace, a winter at the enemy's hearth, and a hall destroyed — casts its shadow over Heorot's celebration of Beowulf's triumph.
Fitt 18
Fitt XVIII — The Finn Episode (continued) — The Banquet Continues
Hengest's winter captivity ends in the slaughter of Finn and the recovery of Hildeburg; the lay closes and Wealhtheow presents Beowulf the Brosing necklace with a mother's quiet plea.
Fitt 19
Fitt XIX — Beowulf Receives Further Honor
Wealhtheow completes her gifts to Beowulf; the warriors clear the benches and settle to sleep — the poet noting quietly that one among them will not survive the night.
Fitt 20
Fitt XX — The Mother of Grendel
Grendel's mother comes in the night and seizes Aeschere, Hrothgar's most beloved counselor — the first killing solved nothing; the grief merely changed its shape.
Fitt 21
Fitt XXI — Hrothgar's Account of the Monsters
Hrothgar describes the monsters' haunted mere — frost-white forests, black water, fire at night, and a deer that would rather die on the bank than enter — and asks Beowulf to go against it.
Fitts XXII–XXXI · Grendel's mother
Beowulf follows her into the haunted mere and fights her at the bottom of the lake.
Fitt 22
Fitt XXII — Beowulf Seeks Grendel's Mother
Beowulf arms with Hrunting, the poison-stained sword, and follows the trail to the blood-welling mere where sea-serpents haunt the cliffs and Aeschere's head lies on the bank.
Fitt 23
Fitt XXIII — Beowulf's Fight with Grendel's Mother
Beowulf enters the haunted mere without hesitation, sinks to its cave floor, and finds Hrunting useless against Grendel's mother in the firelit dark.
Fitt 24
Fitt XXIV — Beowulf is Double-conqueror
Beowulf finds a giant-forged sword in the cave, kills Grendel's mother, severs Grendel's head, and watches the blade dissolve in the monster's blood.
Fitt 25
Fitt XXV — Beowulf Brings His Trophies — Hrothgar's Gratitude
Beowulf returns Grendel's head to Heorot, Hrothgar reads the Flood-story engraved on the ancient hilt, and begins his great sermon against pride.
Fitt 26
Fitt XXVI — Hrothgar Moralizes — Rest After Labor
Hrothgar warns Beowulf that pride invades even the greatest warrior like a wound — then the hall feasts, and Beowulf returns Hrunting to Unferth with thanks.
Fitt 27
Fitt XXVII — Sorrow at Parting
Beowulf bids Hrothgar farewell; the old Danish king weeps openly, calls him the finest young man he has known, and watches the Geats walk back to their ship.
Fitt 28
Fitt XXVIII — The Homeward Journey — The Two Queens
The Geats sail home to their own cliffs; Beowulf gifts the shore-warden a sword, and the poet pauses to contrast two queens — generous Hygd and the once-murderous Thrytho.
Fitt 29
Fitt XXIX — Beowulf and Higelac
Hygelac questions Beowulf eagerly in his hall, relieved he returned alive; Beowulf reports on Denmark and predicts Hrothgar's marriage-peace with the Heathobards will not last.
Fitt 30
Fitt XXX — Beowulf Narrates His Adventures to Higelac
Beowulf retells the Grendel nights for Hygelac, naming the slain Hondscio and describing Grendel's bag of human skins — details the poem withheld from its own first account.
Fitt 31
Fitt XXXI — Gift-giving is Mutual
Beowulf gives Hygelac everything Hrothgar awarded him, passing even the great neck-ring to the queen; Hygelac rewards him with Hrethel's heirloom sword and seven thousand hides of land.
Fitts XXXII–XLIII · The dragon
Fifty years later, an old king faces a dragon. He kills it. It kills him.
Fitt 32
Fitt XXXII — The Hoard and the Dragon
A runaway slave takes a cup from a buried hoard; the dragon sleeping on it for three centuries wakes, traces the theft, and burns Beowulf's hall to the ground.
Fitt 33
Fitt XXXIII — Brave Though Aged — Reminiscences
Beowulf learns his hall is ash, grieves, orders an iron shield, and recalls swimming home from Friesland after Hygelac's death — the test his old body now faces is worse than that one.
Fitt 34
Fitt XXXIV — Beowulf Seeks the Dragon — Beowulf's Reminiscences
Beowulf marches to the barrow with eleven men and a reluctant guide, pausing to remember Hrethel — the king who died of grief when his son killed his son and law forbade revenge.
Fitt 35
Fitt XXXV — Reminiscences (continued) — Beowulf's Last Battle
After recalling the Swedish wars that will undo the Geats after his death, Beowulf makes his last speech to the eleven and walks alone to the barrow-entrance to shout his challenge.
Fitt 36
Fitt XXXVI — Wiglaf the Trusty — Beowulf is Deserted by Friends and by Sword
Wiglaf watches Beowulf burning under the dragon's fire, recalls the gold given in the hall, and goes to his side alone — the ten others flee into the woods and do not return.
Fitt 37
Fitt XXXVII — The Fatal Struggle — Beowulf's Last Moments
Wiglaf stabs the dragon from below; Beowulf cuts it through the middle with his war-knife — but the venom from the neck-wound is already spreading, and Beowulf sits down to die.
Fitt 38
Fitt XXXVIII — Wiglaf Plunders the Dragon's Den — Beowulf's Death
Wiglaf carries the dragon's hoard to the dying Beowulf, who thanks God and gives Wiglaf his collar, helmet, and mail before dying beside the barrow he conquered.
Fitt 39
Fitt XXXIX — The Dead Foes — Wiglaf's Bitter Taunts
The ten deserters return to find Wiglaf sitting exhausted beside the two dead bodies; he delivers a cold, specific indictment of what their flight at the barrow means for the Geats.
Fitt 40
Fitt XL — The Messenger of Death
A messenger announces Beowulf's death to the waiting Geat host and immediately names the consequence: the Franks, Frisians, and Swedes will all attack now that the king who held them off is gone.
Fitt 41
Fitt XLI — The Messenger's Retrospect
The messenger recounts the Swedish wars in full: how Eofor killed Ongentheow, how Hygelac rewarded him — the history the Geats must carry forward now without a king who can hold the Swedes back.
Fitt 42
Fitt XLII — Wiglaf's Sad Story — The Hoard Carried Off
Wiglaf leads seven men into the barrow; the dragon is pushed into the sea, the hoard loaded onto a wain, and Beowulf's body carried to Hronesness for the pyre.
Fitt 43
Fitt XLIII — The Burning of Beowulf
The Geats burn Beowulf on a pyre hung with helmets and war-coats, raise a great mound at Hronesness, bury the entire hoard in his barrow, and ride around it singing his name.