A Book of Myths
other, and with her own hand she passed the goblet to each one. When,
last of it all, it came to the guest of honour, Beowulf took the cup
of mead from the fair queen and solemnly pledged himself to save the
land from the evil thing that devoured it like a pestilence, or to die
in his endeavour.
"Needs must I now perform knightly deeds in this hall,
Or here must meet my doom in darksome night."
When darkness fell the feast came to an end, and all left the hall
save Beowulf and his fourteen followers. In their armour, with swords
girt on their sides, the fourteen heroes lay down to rest, but Beowulf
laid aside all his arms and gave his sword to a thane to bear away.
For, said he,
"I have heard
That that foul miscreant's dark and stubborn flesh
Recks not the force of arms ...
Hand to hand ... Beowulf will grapple with the mighty foe."
From his fastnesses in the fens, the Grendel had heard the shouts of
revelry, and as the Goths closed their eyes to sleep, knowing they
might open them again only to grapple with hideous death, yet unafraid
because of their sure belief that "What is to be goes ever as it
must," the monster roused himself. Through the dank, chill, clinging
mists he came, and his breath made the poisonous miasma of the marshes
more deadly as he padded over the shivering reeds and trembling
rushes, across the bleak moorland and the high cliffs where the fresh
tang of the grey sea was defiled by the hideous stench of a foul beast
of prey. There was fresh food for him to-night, he knew, some blood
more potent than any that for twelve years had come his bestial way.
And he hastened on with greedy eagerness, nightmare incarnate. He
found the great door of the banqueting-hall bolted and barred, but one
angry wrench set at naught the little precautionary measures of mere
men.
The dawn was breaking dim and grey and very chill when Beowulf heard
the stealthy tread without, and the quick-following crash of the bolts
and bars that gave so readily. He made no movement, but only waited.
In an instant the dawn was blotted out by a vast black shadow, and
swifter than any great bear could strike, a scaly hand had struck one
of the friends of Beowulf. In an instant the man was torn from limb to
limb, and in a wild disgust and hatred Beowulf heard the lapping of
blood, the scrunching of bones and chewing of warm flesh as the
monster ravenously devoured him. Again the loathsome hand was
stretched out to seize and to devour. But in the darkness two hands,
like hands of iron, gripped the outstretched arm, and the Grendel knew
that he had met his match at last. The warriors of Beowulf awoke to
find a struggle going on such as their eyes never before beheld, for
it was a fight to the death between man and monster. Vainly they tried
to aid their leader, but their weapons only glanced harmlessly off the
Grendel's scaly hide. Up and down the hall the combatants wrestled,
until the walls shook and the great building itself rocked to its
foundations. Ever and again it seemed as though no human power could
prevail against teeth and claws and demonic fury, and as tables and
benches crashed to the ground and broke under the tramping feet of the
Grendel, it appeared an impossible thing that Beowulf should overcome.
Yet ever tighter and more tight grew the iron grip of Beowulf. His
fingers seemed turned to iron. His hatred and loathing made his grasp
crash through scales, into flesh, and crush the marrow out of the bone
it found there. And when at length the Grendel could no more, and with
a terrible cry wrenched himself free, and fled, wailing, back to the
fenland, still in his grasp Beowulf held the limb. The Grendel had
freed himself by tearing the whole arm out of its socket, and, for
once, the trail of blood across the moors was that of the monster and
not of its victims.
Great indeed was the rejoicing of Hrothgar and of his people when, in
the morning, instead of crimson-stained rushes and the track of vermin
claws imbrued in human blood, they found all but one of the men from
Gothland alive, and looked upon the hideous trophy that told them
that their enemy could only have gone to find a shameful death in the
marshes. They cleansed out the great hall, hung it with lordly
trappings, and made it once more fit habitation for the lordliest in
the land. That night a feast was held in it, such as had never before
been held all through the magnificent reign of Hrothgar. The best of
the scalds sung songs in honour of the triumph of Beowulf, and the
queen herself pledged the hero in a cup of mead and gave to him the
beautiful most richly jewelled collar Brisingamen, of exquisite
ancient workmanship, that once was owned by Freya, queen of the gods,
and a great ring of the purest red gold. To Beowulf, too, the king
gave a banner, all broidered in gold, a sword of the finest, with
helmet and corselet, and eight fleet steeds, and on the back of the
one that he deemed the best Hrothgar had placed his own saddle,
cunningly wrought, and decked with golden ornaments. To each of the
warriors of Beowulf there were also given rich gifts. And ere the
queen, with her maidens, left the hall that night she said to Beowulf:
"Enjoy thy reward, O dear Beowulf, while enjoy it thou canst. Live
noble and blessed! Keep well thy great fame, and to my dear sons, in
time to come, should ever they be in need, be a kind protector!"
With happy hearts in very weary bodies, Beowulf and his men left the
hall when the feast was ended, and they slept through the night in
another lodging as those sleep who have faced death through a very
long night, and to whom joy has come in the morning.
But the Danish knights, careless in the knowledge that the Grendel
must even now be in his dying agonies, and that once more Hereot was
for them a safe and noble sleeping-place, lay themselves down to sleep
in the hall, their shields at their heads, and, fastened high up on
the roof above them, the hideous trophy of Beowulf.
Next morning as the grey dawn broke over the northern sea, it saw a
sight that made it more chill than death. Across the moorland went a
thing--half wolf, half woman--the mother of Grendel. The creature she
had borne had come home to die, and to her belonged his avenging.
Softly she went to Hereot. Softly she opened the unguarded door.
Gladly, in her savage jaws, she seized Aschere, the thane who was to
Hrothgar most dear, and from the roof she plucked her desired
treasure--the arm of Grendel, her son. Then she trotted off to her
far-off, filthy den, leaving behind her the noise of lamentation.
Terrible was the grief of Hrothgar over the death of Aschere, dearest
of friends and sharer of his councils. And to his lamentations Beowulf
listened, sad at heart, humble, yet with a heart that burned for
vengeance. The hideous creature of the night was the mother of
Grendel, as all knew well. On her Beowulf would be avenged, for
Aschere's sake, for the king's, and for the sake of his own honour.
Then once again did he pledge himself to do all that man's strength
could do to rid the land of an evil thing. Well did he know how
dangerous was the task before him, and he gave directions for the
disposal of all that he valued should he never return from his quest.
To the King, who feared greatly that he was going forth on a forlorn
hope, he said:
"Grieve not!... Each man must undergo death at the end of life.
Let him win, while he may, warlike fame in the world!
That is best after death for the slain warrior."
His own men, and Hrothgar, and a great company of Danes went with him
when he set out to trace the blood-stained tracks of the Grendel's
mother. Near the edge of a gloomy mere they found the head of Aschere.
And when they looked at the fiord itself, it seemed to be
blood-stained--stained with blood that ever welled upwards, and in
which revelled with a fierce sort of joy--the rapture of bestial
cruelty--water-monsters without number.
Beowulf, his face white and grim like that of an image of Thor cast in
silver, watched a little while, then drew his bow and drove a bolt
into the heart of one of them, and when they had drawn the slain
carcase to shore, the thanes of Hrothgar marvelled at the horror of
it.
Then Beowulf took leave of Hrothgar and told him that if in two days
he did not return, certain it would be that he would return no more.
The hearts of all who said farewell to him were heavy, but Beowulf
laughed, and bade them be of good cheer. Then into the black waters he
dived, sword in hand, clad in ring-armour, and the dark pool closed
over him as the river of Death closes over the head of a man when his
day is done. To him it seemed as if the space of a day had passed ere
he reached the bottom, and in his passing he encountered many dread
dangers from tusk and horn of a myriad evil creatures of the water who
sought to destroy him. Then at length he reached the bottom of that
sinister mere, and there was clasped in the murderous grip of the
Wolf-Woman who strove to crush his life out against her loathsome
breast. Again and again, when her hideous embrace failed to slay him,
she stabbed him with her knife. Yet ever did he escape. His good
armour resisted the power of her arm, and his own great muscles thrust
her from him. Yet his own sword failed him when he would have smitten
her, and the hero would have been in evil case had he not spied,
hanging on the wall of that most foul den,
"A glorious sword,
An old brand gigantic, trusty in point and edge,
An heirloom of heroes."
Swiftly he seized it, and with it he dealt the Wolf-Woman a blow that
shore her head from her body. Through the foul blood that flowed from
her and that mingled with the black water of the mere, Beowulf saw a
very terrible horror--the body of the Grendel, lying moaning out the
last of his life. Again his strong arm descended, and, his left hand
gripping the coiled locks of the Evil Thing, he sprang upwards through
the water, that lost its blackness and its clouded crimson as he went
ever higher and more high. In his hand he still bore the sword that
had saved him, but the poisonous blood of the dying monsters had made
the water of such fiery heat that the blade melted as he rose, and
only the hilt, with strange runes engraved upon it, remained in his
hand.
Where he left them, his followers, and the Danes who went with them,
remained, watching, waiting, ever growing more hopeless as night
turned into day, and day faded into night, and they saw the black
waters of the lonely fen bubbling up, terrible and blood-stained. But
when the waters cleared, hope returned to their hearts, and when, at
length, Beowulf uprose from the water of the mere and they saw that in
his hand he bore the head of the Grendel, there was no lonely scaur,
nor cliff, nor rock of the land of the Danes that did not echo the
glad cry of "_Beowulf! Beowulf!_"
Well-nigh overwhelmed by gifts from those whom he had preserved was
the hero, Beowulf. But in modest, wise words he spoke to the King:
"Well hast thou treated us.
If on this earth I can do more to win thy love,
O prince of warriors, than I have wrought as yet,
Here stand I ready now weapons to wield for thee.
If I shall ever hear o'er the encircling flood
That any neighbouring foes threaten thy nation's fall,
As Grendel grim before, swift will I bring to thee
Thousands of noble thanes, heroes to help thee."
Then, in their ship, that the Warden of the Coast once had challenged,
Beowulf and his warriors set sail for their own dear land.
Gaily the vessel danced over the waves, heavy though it was with