Beowulf: The Only One – Live at Grendel’s Den

(3 customer reviews)

$24.95

Before a live adult audience, Odds Bodkin introduces the tale with Celtic harp and then performs Beowulf: The Only One, his storyteller’s version of the epic, self-accompanied on 12-string guitar.

WINNER of the 2020 STORYTELLING WORLD AWARD

Hear a sample:

Not recommended for listeners under 12.

Description

“Fate often saves an undoomed man if his courage holds.”
Recorded live before an adult audience at Grendel’s Den on Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, here is a powerful, intimate, funny and terrifying performance of Beowulf: The Only One, Odds Bodkin’s storyteller’s version of the oldest piece of literature in the English language. Introducing the story while playing Celtic harp, Bodkin then switches to 12-string guitar to score this one-hour and twenty-minute tale.

First meet Hrothgar, the Danish King, and then Grendel––the giant wolf-demon who comes each night to kill and devour men, or thanes, as they were called. Then meet Beowulf, the all-too-human hero who journeys with his thanes to repay Hrothgar for saving Beowulf’s father long ago. How Beowulf kills Grendel with his bare hands, and then hunts down Grendel’s Mother, an older demon, in her deep water cave, is only part of the tale. The rest takes place fifty years later, when Beowulf, now king of the Geats, must face a fire-breathing dragon. Once again, Beowulf knows he is the only one who can do it.

In classic bardic fashion, Odds Bodkin creates vivid character voices for Beowulf, Hrothgar, Grendel and his Mother, Unferth, Wyglaf and others while playing his musical instruments.

Not recommended for children under twelve.

$19.95

117 mb
1 hour 21 minutes

 


Mr. Bodkin thanks Joe Froeber, songwriter, musician and event producer, for creating the live evening performance series that made this recording possible. You can find out more about Joe’s original music at: https://m.facebook.com/JFDrunkMonkeys

He also wishes to thank Charlie Gargano, musician and sound expert, for his live recording and mixing of Beowulf: The Only One. You can find out more about his work at: https://www.themurdockmanor.com

 

3 reviews for Beowulf: The Only One – Live at Grendel’s Den

  1. Simon Brooks (verified owner)

    Beowulf is one of my favourite stories. I have five written versions of it from Seamus Heaney’s fantastic translation to Michael Morpurgo’s equally brilliant young person’s telling. To hear Odds Bodkin embody this story in a “hall” (read: pub/bar) with a live audience is a wonderful gift to the world. His telling is superb, the pace perfect, original lines pop out, and his telling is alive. If we lived in those days of Grendle, swords, and mead halls, and spoke current English, this would be the quintessential telling. I am not usually a fan of live recordings, but this is one of those rare performances that truly benefits an audience. The musical accompaniment on guitar, never drowning Odds out, pulls you along, fills your ears and body leaving you totally immersed in the man’s words and fully within the story.
    Simple put – buy it!

  2. Simon Brooks (verified owner)

    Like all of his work, Odds Bodkin’s ‘Beowulf’ is deep, funny, and brilliantly told. Odds’ version is entertaining and pulls you in so you cannot back away from it and sticks very closely to the story. There are parts where he uses the exact wording and phrases from the translations which pop out for me. The humour he injects into the story is artful, and respectful to the original. I have listened to it several times. In fact I am at the point where I cannot start it unless I have the time to finish it all. I cannot stop listening to the words and music which flow so wonderfully throughout the hour and twenty minutes or so it lasts.

    If we lived in those days of Grendel, swords, and mead halls, and spoke current English, this telling by Odds would be the quintessential telling. I am not usually a fan of live recordings, but this is one of those performances that truly benefits an audience. The musical accompaniment on guitar, never drowning Odds out, pulls you along, fills your ears and body leaving you totally immersed in the man’s words and fully within the story.

  3. amilolomy (verified owner)

    This is the version that made me absolutely fall in love with the Beowulf story, and really understand why it has become such a classic piece of literature. There is such life and emotion in the way Bodkin tells it, that you just can’t get from reading it alone. He takes it from being a dry, unsentimental piece of curriculum and spins it into a deeply moving journey, I always find myself crying by the end of it.

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