For the killing of Abel The Eternal Lord had exacted a price: Cain got no good from committing that murder Because the Almighty made him anathema And out of the curse of his exile there sprang Ogres and elves and evil phantoms And the giants too who strove with God Time and again until He gave them their reward. (Heaney 9) The author of Beowulf is here placing Grendel's origins at a time before Noah's flood, and likening him to Cain in the Book of Genesis