THEN sank they to sleep. With sorrow one bought

his rest of the evening, — as ofttime had happened

when Grendel guarded that golden hall,

evil wrought, till his end drew nigh,

slaughter for sins. ’Twas seen and told

how an avenger survived the fiend,

as was learned afar. The livelong time

after that grim fight, Grendel’s mother,

monster of women, mourned her woe.

She was doomed to dwell in the dreary waters,

cold sea-courses, since Cain cut down

with edge of the sword his only brother,

his father’s offspring: outlawed he fled,

marked with murder, from men’s delights

warded the wilds. — There woke from him

such fate-sent ghosts as Grendel, who,

war-wolf horrid, at Heorot found

a warrior watching and waiting the fray,

with whom the grisly one grappled amain.

But the man remembered his mighty power,

the glorious gift that God had sent him,

in his Maker’s mercy put his trust

for comfort and help: so he conquered the foe,

felled the fiend, who fled abject,

reft of joy, to the realms of death,

mankind’s foe. And his mother now,

gloomy and grim, would go that quest

of sorrow, the death of her son to avenge.

To Heorot came she, where helmeted Danes

slept in the hall. Too soon came back

old ills of the earls, when in she burst,

the mother of Grendel. Less grim, though, that terror,

e’en as terror of woman in war is less,

might of maid, than of men in arms

when, hammer-forged, the falchion hard,

sword gore-stained............