1490hard of edge: with Hrunting I
seek doom of glory, or Death shall take me.”
After these words the Weder-Geat lord
boldly hastened, biding never
answer at all: and ocean floods
1495closed o’er the hero. Long while[1] of the day
fled ere he felt the floor of the sea.
Soon found the fiend who the flood-domain
sword-hungry held these hundred winters,
greedy and grim, that some guest from above,
1500some man, was raiding her monster-realm.
She grasped out for him with grisly claws,[2]
and the warrior seized; yet scathed she not
his body hale; the breastplate hindered,
as she strove to shatter the sark of war,
1505the linkéd harness, with loathsome hand.
Then bore this brine-wolf, when bottom she[3] touched,
the lord of rings to the lair she haunted,
whiles vainly he strove, though his valor held,
weapon to wield against wondrous monsters
1510that sore beset him; sea-beasts many
tried with fierce tusks to tear his mail,
and swarmed on the stranger. But soon he marked
he was now in some hall, he knew not which,
where water never could work him harm,
1515nor through the roof could reach him ever
fangs of the flood. Firelight he saw,
