Afternoon of Alterity - Nazareth College

she bore two sons, one from the impure side, and one fromthe side of Adam… Hence it was that their ways in life weredifferent… From [Cain] originate all the evil habitationsand demons and goblins and evil spirits in the world.(Friedman 95)Such texts establish the foundation for monsters such as Grendel tohave their lineage traced back into the monstrous line of Cain.In continuing to examine medieval myths pertaining to Cain andhis progeny, it also quickly becomes clear that certain characteristicsare attributed to Cain’s monstrous kin that readily identify them asmembers of Cain’s line. Perhaps not surprisingly, Grendel displaysall of the characteristics traditionally associated with members ofCain’s kin, virtually without deviation. According to John Friedmanin his book The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought,apocryphal accounts of Cain’s legend stress Cain’s “violent nature,his association with the devil, and his degradation from humanstatus, often figured by his ugliness or physical deformity” (Friedman95). Such violence and physical disfigurement are certainly evidentin the case of Grendel. Friedman goes on to cite a selection fromthe Middle Irish text, Lebor Gabala, which embellishes not onlyupon Cain’s deformities, but describes him as dwelling “a wildfugitive, in the eastern boarder of the land called Eden,” therebycharacterizing Cain as an uncivilized wanderer on the edges ofsociety—another characteristic clearly displayed by Grendel (96).Friedman additionally establishes cannibalism as a fundamentalfeature of the kin of Cain, referencing the medieval Hereford WorldMap which reads, “Here are exceedingly truculent men, eatinghuman flesh, drinking blood, cursed sons of Cain” (95). He furthercites the Middle English text, Life of Adam and Eve, which details theorigin of the cannibalistic impulse that Cain’s kin are said to display,with the character of Eve stating, “I saw in my dream Cain gathermaura whitman 9