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Updated: June 12, 2025
The thanes started up in terror, hastily grasping their swords; but she seized upon Asher, the most beloved of Hrothgar's warriors, who still lay sleeping, and bore him off with her to the fens, carrying also with her Grendel's arm, which lay at one end of the hall. Then there arose an uproar and the sound of mourning in Heorot.
But in this they were mistaken, as they soon learnt to their cost. For no sooner were they all asleep than Grendel's mother, a monstrous witch who dwelt at the bottom of a cold mere, came to Heorot to avenge her son and burst into the hall.
Two of them, the comparison of the light in Grendel's dwelling to the beams of the sun, and of a vessel to a flying bird, have been given in the original Anglo-Saxon on pages 16, 17.
Hall-folk fail me, my warriors wane; for Wyrd hath swept them into Grendel's grasp. But God is able this deadly foe from his deeds to turn! Boasted full oft, as my beer they drank, earls o'er the ale-cup, armed men, that they would bide in the beer-hall here, Grendel's attack with terror of blades.
The latter problem is still further complicated by the introduction of two beasts in the Bjarkarímur where Saxo and the Hrólfssaga have only one, and the introduction in Beowulf of Grendel's mother, who makes her appearance in order to defend her offspring and also is slain. In this dissertation an attempt will not be made to clear up the whole of this complicated matter.
Sarrazin regards the cowardly, useless Hott, Bjarki's companion, as a personification of the sword Hrunting, which fails Beowulf in his fight with Grendel's mother. But Hjalti, as Hott is called after he has become brave and strong, he regards as a personification of the giant-sword with which Beowulf dispatches Grendel's mother.
Over the moor he rushed till he came to his bog, and there he sank down into the middle of the bog, wailing and shrieking like one whose last hour was come. Then there was great rejoicing at Heorot, the palace, and King Hrothgar, when he saw Grendel's hand which Beowulf had torn away, embraced him and blessed him, and he and all his friends were laden with splendid gifts.
"The grim and greedy one was soon prepared, savage and fierce, and in sleep he seized upon thirty of the thanes, and thence he again departed exulting in his prey, to go home with the carcases of the slain, to reach his own dwelling. "Then was in the morning twilight, at the breaking of day, Grendel's war-craft revealed to men.
And now when Beowulf and his men came near it, they saw fierce water dragons lying near the edge or swimming about the pool. There also, beside the water, they found the dead body of Hrothgar's friend, who had been killed by Grendel's mother, and they took it up, and mourned over him afresh.
Hrothgar was broken-hearted, and many were the councils held in secret to deliberate what it were best to do against these fearful terrors; but nothing availed to stop the fiend's ravages. Now the tale of Grendel's deeds went forth into many lands; and amongst those who heard of it were the Geats, whose king was Higelac.
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