The anonymous author who wrote Beowulf in about the eighth century A.D. described a man-eating creature, half human and half sea monster, that lived at the bottom of a foul lake inhabited by his equally hideous mother and other monsters. Descended from Cain, the progenitor of all evil spirits, Grendel kept breaking into Herorot, the castle of the Danish king Hrothgar, and carrying away his men. For twelve years Grendel haunted the halls of Herorot; once he snatched up thirty of the Geats, a people of southern Sweden, and ran out with their bodies, their blood dripping behind him. It seemed that “hate had triumphed” until the noble warrior Beowulf encountered and slew the monster one night. Later, Beowulf dove down deep into the water and killed the monster’s mother in her palace in the deep.