The wretched being had long inhabited the abode of the monster kind, e’er since the Creator had condemned him. This grim foe was called Grendel, a mighty stalker of the marches, who haunted the moors, the fens and fastnesses. Thus the king’s men lived, blissful and happy, until a certain one, a fiend of hell, began to plot mischief. He adorned all the regions of the earth with leaf and branch, and created life in everything that lives and moves.
He spoke, who could recount from of old the creation of men, told how the Almighty made the earth, the fair-faced land, and the waters that compass it about how, exultant in victory, He set the sun and moon as lights to lighten the dwellers in the land. There was the sound of the harp, the clear song of the gleeman. Then that mighty spirit who dwelt in darkness bore in his wrath for a season to hear each day the merriment, loud in the hall. Yet it awaited the surging blaze of hostile fire nor was it long thereafter that fatal hatred was destined to arise between father-in-law and son-in-law, after the deadly strife. High and pinnacled, the hall towered aloft. He broke not his promise, but gave out rings and treasure at the feast. And he fashioned for it the name of Heorot he whose word had power far and near. After a season-quickly, as man’s work prospereth-it came to pass that it was completed for him, this greatest of halls. It came into his heart to command his men to build a hall, a mead-hall greater than any that the children of men had ever heard of, and therein to give gifts of all kinds to old and young, as God had prospered him, save the people’s land and the lives of men.Īnd I heard men tell how the work of adorning the people’s hall was allotted unto many a tribe, far and wide throughout this earth.
Hrothgar was given success in battle, glory in warfare, so that his loyal kinsmen gladly obeyed him, until the young warriors were grown, a mighty band. How the merriment in the hall angered Grendel, an evil monster. Of Erothgar, son of Healfdene and king of the Seyldings, and, how he built a fair mead-hall, whieh he named Heorot. Link provided per reproduction rights: Chauncey Brewster Tinker – Beowulf (1912).pdf () Translated out of the Old English by Chauncy Brewster Tinker (1912)
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