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. Now in Hart hath befallen for a hand-bane unto him 1330 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; And further hath she now the feud set on foot, 1340 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, 1350 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 Midst the mists of the nesses wends netherward ever, 1360 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 Driven fleeing from far, he shall sooner leave life, 1370 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