The First English Hero

The sun was shining, the wind was blowing, the air was as
sweet-smelling as if it rose from fields of lilies, and it was the very
springtime of the world some two thousand years ago.

By song little Widsith has seen his master bind all men and all beasts.
Not only the fish and worms forgot their tasks, but even the cattle
stopped grazing, and, where they passed, men and children paused to
listen. They were on their way to the Great Hall to have a sight of
the hero, Beowulf.

Behind them lay the sea and the coast-guard pacing up and down. Before
them, landward, rose a long, high-roofed hall. It had gable ends from
which towered up huge stag-horns. And the roof shone only less brightly
than the sun, for it was covered with metal.

About the Great Hall toward which little Widsith and the master were
traveling was the village made up of tiny houses, each in its own
patch of tilled ground and apple-trees, and with fields in which sheep
and oxen and horses were pastured. Narrow paths wound in and out
everywhere. In front of the Hall was a broad meadow across which the
king and queen and their lords and ladies were used to walk.

There was much going on that day in Heorot. Flocks of children were
playing about the pretty paths. Mothers and aunts and older sisters sat
spinning in the open doorways. Beyond the wide meadow young men and
boys were leading or riding spirited horses up and down to exercise
them.

And all--men, women, and children alike--were talking about Beowulf,
who had come to kill the monster Grendel and free the people of Heorot.

Beowulf had not much more than entered the Hall when the scôp, or
singer, as little Widsith's master was called, entered too. In those
days singers were welcome everywhere. They saw Beowulf stride mightily
across the many-colored floor of Heorot and go up to the old King. And
they heard his voice, which sounded like the rumble of a heavy sea on
their rock-bound coast.

"Hrothgar!" he said to the old King, "across the sea's way have I come
to help thee."

"Of thee, Beowulf, have we need," replied the old King in tears, "for
Heorot has suffered much from the monster."

"I will deliver thee, Hrothgar," said Beowulf, in his great voice;
"thee and all who dwell in Heorot."

"Steep and stony are the sea cliffs, joyless our woods and
wolf-haunted, robbed is our Heorot, for to Grendel can no man do aught.
He breaks the bones of my people. And those of my people he cannot eat
in Heorot he drags away on to the moor and devours alive."

And the old, bald-headed King, seated on his high seat in the Hall
between his pretty daughter and his tired Queen, sighed as he thought
of the approaching night. Yet, now that Beowulf had come, he hoped.

Together they gathered about the banquet. Beowulf sat among the sons
of the old King. The walls inside were as bright as the roof, and
gold-gilded, and the great fires from which smoke poured out through
openings in the roof were cheerful and warm.

Then little Widsith's master was called up, and Widsith placed the harp
for him. Clear rose the song from the scôp's lips, and all the company
was still. For a while they forgot the monster which, even now with
the falling dusk, was striding up from the sea, perhaps by the same
path Beowulf and Widsith and the scôp had come. Already it had grown
dark under heaven and darker in the Hall, and the place was filled with
shadowy shapes.

And now came Grendel stalking from the cloudy cliffs toward the Gold
Hall. It would have been hard for four men to have carried his huge
head, so big it was. The nails of his hands were like iron, and large
as the monstrous claws of a wild beast. And, since there was a spell
upon him, no sword or spear could harm him.

While others slept--even frightened little Widsith, who had thought he
could never sleep--Beowulf lay awake, ready with his naked hands to
fight Grendel.

Suddenly the monster smote the door of Heorot, and it cracked asunder.
In he strode, flame in his eyes, and before Beowulf could spring upon
him or any one awake, he snatched a sleeping warrior and tore him to
pieces.

Beowulf, who had the strength of thirty men in his body, gripped him,
and the dreadful battle and noise began. The benches were overturned,
the walls cracked, the fires were scattered, and dust rose in clouds
from the many-colored floor as Beowulf wrestled with Grendel.

The scôp had seized his harp and was playing a great battle song, but
music has no power over such evil as Grendel's. Beowulf himself, who
was struggling to break the bone-house of the monster in the din of the
mighty battle, did not hear it, either. And the song was lost in the
noise and dust which rose together in Heorot.

Even the warriors, who struck Grendel with their swords, could not help
Beowulf, for neither sword nor spear could injure the monster. Only the
might of the hero, himself, could do aught.

At last, with the strength of thirty men, Beowulf gripped the monster.
And Grendel, with rent sinews and bleeding body, fled away to the
ocean cave where he had lived. And there in the cave, with the sea
blood-stained and boiling above him, he died, outlawed for evil.