Hear me! We've heard of Danish heroes, ancient kings and the glory
they cut for themselves, swinging mighty swords!
How Shild made slaves of soldiers from every land, crowds of captives
he'd beaten into terror; he'd travelled to Denmark alone, an abandoned
child, but changed his own fate, lived to be rich and much honored. He
ruled lands on all sides: wherever the sea would take them his soldiers
sailed, returned with tribute and obedience. There was a brave King! And
he gave them more than his glory, conceived a son for the Danes, a new
leader allowed them by the grace of the God. They had lived, before his
coming, kingless and miserable; now the Lord of all life, Ruler of glory,
blessed them with a prince, Beo, whose power and fame soon spread through
the world. Shild's strong son was the glory of Denmark; his father's
warriors were wound round his heart with golden rings, bound to their
prince by his father's treasure. So young man build the future, wisely
open-handed in peace, protected in war; so warriors earn their fame, and
wealth is shaped with a sword.
When his time was come the old king died, still strong but called to
the Lord's hands. His comrades carried him down to the shore, bore him as
their leader had asked, their lord and companion, while words could move
on his tongue. Shild's reign had been long; he'd ruled them well. There in
the harbor was a ring-prowed fighting ship, its timbers icy, waiting, and
there they brought the beloved body of their ring-giving lord, and laid
him near the mast. Next to that noble corpse they heaped up treasures,
jeweled helmets, hooked swords and coats of mail, armor carried from the
ends of the earth: no ship had ever sailed so brightly fitted, no king
sent forth more deeply mourned. Forced to set him adrift, floating as far
as the tide mught run, they refused to give him less from their hoards of
gold than those who'd shipped him away, an orphan and a beggar, to cross
the waves alone. High up over his head they flew his shining banner, then
sadly let the water pull at the ship, watched it slowly sliding to where
neither rulers nor heroes nor anyone can say whose hands opened to take
that motionless cargo.
1
Then Beo was king in that Danish castle, Shild's son ruling as long
as his father and as loved, a famous lord of men. And he in turn gave
people a son, the great Healfdane, a fierce fighter who led the Danes to
the end of his long life and left them four children, three princes to
guide them in battle, Hergar and Hrothgar and Halga the Good, and one
daughter, Yrs, who was given to Onela, king of the Swedes, and became his
wife and their queen.
Then Hrothgar, taking the throne, led the Danes to such glory that
comrades and kinsmen swore by his sword, and young men swelled his armies,
and he thought of greatness and resolved to build a hall that would hold
his mighty band and reach higher toward Heaven than anything that had ever
been known to the sons of men. And in that hall he'd divide the spoils of
their victories, to old and young what they'd earned in battle, but
leaving the common pastures untouched, and taking no lives. The work was
odered, the timbers tied and shaped by the hosts that Hrothgar ruled. It
was quickly ready, that most beautiful of dwellings, built as he'd wanted,
and then he whose word was obeyed all over the earth named it Herot. His
boast come true he commanded a banquet, opened out his treasure-full
hands. That towering place, gabled and huge, stood waiting for time to
pass, for war to begin, for flames to leap as high as the feud that would
light them, and for Herot to burn.
A powerful monster, living down in the darkness, growled in pain,
impatient as day after day the music rang loud in that hall, the harp's
rejoicing call and the poet's clear song, sung of the ancient beginnings
of us all, recalling the Almighty making the earth, shaping these
beautiful plains marked off by oceans, then proudly setting the sun and
moon to glow across the land and light it; the corners of the earth were
made lovely with trees and leaves, made quick with life, with each of the
nations who now move on its face. And then as now warriors sang of their
pleasure: so Hrothgar's men lived happy in his hall till the monster
stirred, that demon, that fiend, Grendel, who haunted the moors, the wild
marshes, and made his home in a hell not hell but earth. He was sprawned
with slime, conceived by a pair of those monsters born of Cain, murderous
creatures banished by God, punished forever for the crime of Abel's death.
The Almighty drove those demons out, and their exile was bitter, shut away
from men: they split into a thousand forms of evel - spirits and fiends,
goblins, monsters, giants, a brood forever opposing the Lord's will, and
again and again defeated.
2
Then, when darkness had dropped, Grendel went up to Herot, wondering
what the warriors would do in that hall when their drinking was done. He
found them sprawled in sleep, suspecting nothing, their dreams
undisturbed. The monster's thoughts were as quick as his greed or his
claws: he slipped through the door and there in silence snatched up thirty
men, smashed them unknowing in their beds and ran out with their bodies,
the blood dripping behind him, back to his lair, delighted with his
night's slaughter.
At daybreak, with the sun's first light, they saw how well he had
worked, and in that gray morning broke their long feast with tears and
laments for the dead. Hrothgar, their lord, sat joyless in Herot, a mighty
prince mourning the fate of his lost friends and companions, knowing by
its tracks that some demon had torn his followers apart. He wept, fearing
the beginning might not be the end. And that night Grendel come again, so
set on murder that no crime could ever be enough, no savage assault quench
his lust for evil. Then each warrior tried to escape him, searched for
rest in different beds, as far from Herot as they could find, seeing how
Grendel hunted when they slept. Distance was safety; the only survivors
were those who fled him. Hate had triumphed.
So Grendel ruled, fought with the righteous, one against many, and
won; so Herot stood empty, and stayed deserted for years, twelve winters
of grief for Hrothgar, king of the Danes, sorrow heaped at his door by
hell-forged hands. His misery leaped the seas, was told and sung in all
men's ears: how Grendel's hatred began, how the monster relished his
savage war on the Danes, keeping bloody feud alive, seeking no peace,
offering no truce, accepting no settlement, no price in gold or land, and
paying the living for one crime only with another. No one waited for
reparation from his plundering claws: that shadow of death hunted in the
darkness, stalked Hrothgar's warriors, old and young, lying in waiting,
hidden in mist, invisibly following them from the edge of the marsh,
always there, unseen.
So mankind's enemy continued his crimes, killing as often as he
could, coming alone, bloodthirsty and horrible. Though he lived in Herot,
when the night hid him, he never dared to touch king Hrothgar's glorious
throne, protected by the God - God, whose love Grendel could not know. But
Hrothgar's heart was bent. The best and most noble of his council debated
remedies, sat in secret sessions, talking of terror and wondering what the
bravest of warriors could do. And sometime they sacrificed to the old
stone gods, made heathen vows, hoping for Hell's support, the Devil's
guidance in driving their affliction off. That was their way, and the
heathen's only hope, Hell always in their hearts, knowing neither God nor
His passing as He walks through our world, the Lord of Heaven and earth;
their ears could not hear His prase nor know His glory. Let them beware,
those who are thrust into danger, clutched at by trouble, yet can carry no
solace in their hearts, cannot hope to be better! Hail to those who will
rise to God, drop off their dead bodies and seek our Father's peace!