XXI. HROTHGAR LAMENTS THE SLAYING OF AESCHERE, AND TELLS OF GRENDEL’S MOTHER AND HER DEN.
Spake out then Hrothgar the helm of the Scyldings:
Ask no more after bliss; for new-made now is sorrow
For the folk of the Danes; for Aeschere is dead,
He who was Yrmenlaf's elder of brethren,
My wise man of runes, my bearer of redes,
Mine own shoulder-fellow, when we in the war-tide
Warded our heads and the host on the host fell,
And the boars were a-crashing; e'en such should an earl be,
An atheling exceeding good, e'en as was Aeschere.
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Now in Hart hath befallen for a hand-bane unto him
A slaughter-ghost wandering; naught wot I whither
The fell one, the carrion-proud, far'd hath her back-fare,
By her fill made all famous. That feud hath she wreaked
Wherein yesternight gone by Grendel thou quelledst
Through thy hardihood fierce with grips hard enow.
For that he over-long the lief people of me
Made to wane and undid. In the war then he cringed,
Being forfeit of life. But now came another,
An ill-scather mighty, her son to awreak;
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And further hath she now the feud set on foot,
As may well be deemed of many a thane,
Who after the wealth-giver weepeth in mind,
A hard bale of heart. Now the hand lieth low
Which well-nigh for every joy once did avail you.
The dwellers in land here, my people indeed,
The wise-of-rede hall-folk, have I heard say e'en this:
That they have set eyes on two such-like erewhile,
Two mickle mark-striders the moorland a-holding,
Ghosts come from elsewhere, but of them one there was,
As full certainly might they then know it to be,
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In the likeness of woman; and the other shap'd loathly
All after man's image trod the tracks of the exile,
Save that more was he shapen than any man other;
And in days gone away now they named him Grendel,
The dwellers in fold; they wot not if a father
Unto him was born ever in the days of erewhile
Of dark ghosts. They dwell in a dim hidden land,
The wolf-bents they bide in, on the nesses the windy,
The perilous fen-paths where the stream of the fell-side
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Midst the mists of the nesses wends netherward ever,
The flood under earth. Naught far away hence,
But a mile-mark forsooth, there standeth the mere,
And over it ever hang groves all berimed,
The wood fast by the roots over-helmeth the water.
But each night may one a dread wonder there see,
A fire in the flood. But none liveth so wise
Of the bairns of mankind, that the bottom may know.
Although the heath-stepper beswinked by hounds,
The hart strong of horns, that holt-wood should seek to
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Driven fleeing from far, he shall sooner leave life,
Leave life-breath on the bank, or ever will he
Therein hide his head. No hallow'd stead is it:
Thence the blending of water-waves ever upriseth
Wan up to the welkin, whenso the wind stirreth
Weather-storms loathly, until the lift darkens
And weepeth the heavens. Now along the rede wendeth
Of thee again only. Of that earth yet thou know'st not,
The fearful of steads, wherein thou mayst find
That much-sinning wight; seek then if thou dare,
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And thee for that feud will I guerdon with fee,
The treasures of old time, as erst did I do,
With the gold all-bewounden, if away thence thou get thee.
