Grendel

Prompted by Paul (Man Cave) I couldn't resist looking for a suitable figure (in 28mm scale) to be a reasonable representation of Grendel.

So far not had much luck but did come across these -

From Crocodile Games.

'Grendel Attacking' from Black Pyramid Gaming on ebay.

 Otherworld Miniatures also do a nice range of giants. Perhaps the 'Stone' or 'Hill' Giant would fit the bill?

Stone Giant, Frost Giant, Fire Giant, Hill Giant.

From Wikipedia -
"Grendel is one of three antagonists, along with Grendel's mother and the dragon, in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf (AD 700–1000). Grendel is usually depicted as a monster, though this is the subject of scholarly debate. In the poem, Grendel is feared by all but Beowulf.
Story -
The poem Beowulf is contained in the Nowell Codex. As noted in lines 105–114 and lines 1260–1267 of Beowulf, Grendel and his mother are described as descendants of the Biblical Cain. Beowulf leaves Geatland in order to find and destroy Grendel, who has been attacking the mead hall Heorot, killing and eating anyone he finds there. Barring his lineage, all motives for his attacks are left up to the reader. Usually in most film or literature adaptations, Grendel attacks the hall after having been disturbed by the noise of the drunken revelers. One cryptic scene in which Grendel sits in the abandoned hall unable to approach the throne hints that his motives may be greed or revenge. After a long battle, Beowulf mortally wounds Grendel by ripping his arm off. Grendel dies in his cave under the swamp. Beowulf later engages in a fierce battle with Grendel's mother, over whom he triumphs. Following her death, Beowulf finds Grendel's corpse and removes the head, which he keeps as a trophy. Beowulf then returns to the surface and to his men at the "ninth hour". He returns to Heorot, where he is given many gifts by an even more grateful Hroðgar.
Debate over description -
During the following decades, the exact description of Grendel became a source of debate for scholars. Indeed, because his exact appearance is never directly described in Old English by the original Beowulf poet, part of the debate revolves around what is known, namely his descent from the biblical Cain (who was the first murderer in the Bible).
Debate over Grendel's nature -
Some scholars have linked Grendel's descent from Cain to the monsters and giants of The Cain Tradition.
Seamus Heaney, in his translation of Beowulf, writes in lines 1351–1355 that Grendel is vaguely human in shape, though much larger:

... the other, warped

in the shape of a man, moves beyond the pale

bigger than any man, an unnatural birth

called Grendel by the country people

in former days.

Heaney's translation of lines 1637–1639 also notes that his disembodied head is so large that it takes four men to transport it. Furthermore, in lines 983–89, when Grendel's torn arm is inspected, Heaney describes it as being covered in impenetrable scales and horny growths:

Every nail, claw-scale and spur, every spike

and welt on the hand of that heathen brute

was like barbed steel. Everybody said

there was no honed iron hard enough

to pierce him through, no time proofed blade

that could cut his brutal blood caked claw."

Bergelmir the Mountain Yeller

Another pic of my Ral Partha Frost Giant Bergelmir...

A link to a nicely painted version of the old Ral Partha Frost Giant above.

Another pic here from the Stuff of Legends website. Also has a pic of another nice mini, the Storm Giant that Paul of The Man Cave mentions -

RP01-090 Storm Giant

For Paul of The Man Cave here is the Grendel mini by Ral Partha -

Love this! Can't imagine how difficult it would be to get hold of this one though...



Jötunn - Frost Giants

Was doing a little bit of reading on Norse mythology, specifically Frost Giants, since my purchase below of the Ral Partha frost giant whom I have decided to name "Bergelmir the Mountain Yeller."


The below is from Wikipedia:


"Jötunn.
A jötunn was a giant in Norse mythology, a member of a race of nature spirits with superhuman strength, described as sometimes standing in opposition to the races of the tribes of the Æsir and Vanir, although they frequently mingle with or intermarry with these. Their otherworldly homeland is Jötunheimr, one of the nine worlds of Norse cosmology, separated from Midgard, the world of humans, by high mountains or dense forests. Other place names are also associated with them, including Niflheimr, Utgarðr and Járnviðr.
In later Scandinavian folklore, the nature spirits called trolls (deriving from the term for 'magic') take over many of the functions of the more ancient concept of the jötunn.
The mountain range Jotunheimen in southern Norway was named after the mythological Jǫtunheimar by the poet Åsmund Olavsson Vinje in the 1860s.
In Old Norse, the beings were called jǫtnar (singular jǫtunn, the regular reflex of the stem jǫtun- and the nominative singular ending -r), or risar (singular risi), in particular bergrisar ('mountain-risar'), or þursar (singular þurs), in particular hrímþursar ('rime-thurs'). Giantesses could also be known as gýgjar (singular gýgr) or íviðjur (singular íviðja).
Jǫtunn (Proto-Germanic *etunaz) might have the same root as "eat" (Proto-Germanic *etan) and accordingly had the original meaning of "glutton" or "man-eater", possibly in the sense of personifying chaos, the destructive forces of nature. Following the same logic, þurs might be derivative of "thirst" or "blood-thirst." Risi is probably akin to "rise," and so means "towering person" (akin to German Riese, Dutch reus, archaic Swedish rese, giant). The word "jotun" survives in modern Norwegian as giant (though more commonly called trolls), and has evolved into jätte and jætte in modern Swedish and Danish, while in Faroese they are called jatnir [jaʰtnɪɹ]/[jaʰknɪɹ] (Singular: jøtun [jøːtʊn]). In modern Icelandic jötunn has kept its original meaning. In Old English, the cognate to jötunn is eoten, whence modern English ettin.
The Elder Futhark rune , called Thurs (from Proto-Germanic *Þurisaz), later evolved into the letter Þ. In Scandinavian folklore, the Norwegian name Tusse for a kind of troll or nisse, derives from Old Norse Þurs. Old English also has the cognate þyrs of the same meaning.
Norse jötnar - The first living being formed in the primeval chaos known as Ginnungagap was a giant of monumental size, called Ymir. When he slept a jötunn son and a jötunn daughter grew from his armpits, and his two feet procreated and gave birth to a son, a monster with six heads. These three beings gave rise to the race of hrímþursar (rime thurs), who populated Niflheim, the world of mist, chill and ice. The gods instead claim their origin from a certain Búri. When the giant Ymir subsequently was slain by Odin, Vili and Vé (the grandsons of Búri), his blood (i.e. water) deluged Niflheim and killed all of the jötnar, apart from one known as Bergelmir and his spouse, who then repopulated their kind.
Some of the jötnar are attributed with hideous appearances – claws, fangs, and deformed features, apart from a generally hideous size. Some of them may even have many heads, such as Thrivaldi who had nine of them, or an overall non-humanoid shape; so were Jörmungandr and Fenrir, two of the children of Loki.
Yet when jötnar are named and more closely described, they are often given the opposite characteristics. Very old, they carry wisdom from bygone times. It is the jötnar Mímir and Vafþrúðnir Odin seeks out to gain this ancient knowledge. Many of the gods' spouses are giants. Njörðr is married to Skaði, Gerðr becomes the consort of Freyr, Odin gains the love of Gunnlod, and even Thor, the great slayer of their kind, produces a child with Járnsaxa; Magni. As such, they appear as minor gods themselves, which can also be said about the sea giant Ægir, far more connected to the gods than to the other jötnar occupying Jotunheim. None of these fear light, and in comfort their homes do not differ greatly from those of the gods."

Not much to report...

Unfortunately have not managed to get a lot done over the past week or so. Got some basic flesh shading done on about 19 Vikings and 9 villager types but not a lot else, certainly nothing worthy of a photo!
On a plus note I think I have the basic idea for the first scenario, very much based on an idea by the influential Paul @ 'The Man Cave'. The scenario in question, "Ambush at Bruthweald" is a great idea (I always enjoy reading his battle reports!) and I reckon is a good place for our own game to begin.

As an aside, although I had no intention of there being any 'fantasy' element in our Viking/Saxon campaign I couldn't resist a dip into the past when a found an old Ral Partha 'Frost Giant' on ebay. I always remember him in the old Citadel 'Blue Blur' catalogue and was overcome with nostalgia and picked him up!

 He is the fella on the bottom left of the picture. In all honesty he needs a bit of work painting and basing wise but here he is with a few berserks from the warband of Rurik the Restless...