Which monster's arm is torn off before he dies in his lair?

Which monster’s arm is torn off before he dies in his lair? Grendel’s arm is torn off by Beowulf. During their fight in Heorot, Beowulf grips Grendel with overwhelming strength and wrenches the arm from its shoulder. The injury is fatal, although Grendel escapes the hall before dying in his marshy lair.

The severed limb becomes a public trophy. Beowulf and the Danes display Grendel’s shoulder and arm in Heorot, proving that the seemingly invulnerable attacker has finally been defeated. Grendel’s mother then raids the hall in revenge, beginning the poem’s second major monster episode.

Grendel is one of Beowulf’s three principal antagonists, alongside his mother and the dragon. The poem describes him as a descendant of Cain and uses several terms from Germanic myth for a supernatural being, but it does not give a single precise biological description. Hondscio, one of Beowulf’s companions, is instead a victim killed by Grendel. Cain is Grendel’s biblical ancestor, while the dragon is defeated much later and never loses an arm.