Ill fared his feud,[1] and far was he driven,
110for the slaughter’s sake, from sight of men.
Of Cain awoke all that woful breed,
Etins[2] and elves and evil-spirits,
as well as the giants that warred with God
weary while: but their wage was paid them!
II
115Went he forth to find at fall of night
that haughty house, and heed wherever
the Ring-Danes, outrevelled, to rest had gone.
Found within it the atheling band
asleep after feasting and fearless of sorrow,
120of human hardship. Unhallowed wight,
grim and greedy, he grasped betimes,
wrathful, reckless, from resting-places,
thirty[3] of the thanes, and thence he rushed
fain of his fell spoil, faring homeward,
125laden with slaughter, his lair to seek.
Then at the dawning, as day was breaking,
the might of Grendel to men was known;
then after wassail was wail uplifted,
- ↑ Cain’s.
- ↑ The eoten, Norse jotun, or giant, survives in the English ballad-title, Hind Etin. The “giants” of v. 113 come from Genesis, vi, 4. See also the apocryphal book of Enoch, noted by Kittredge, Paul und Braune’s Beiträge, xiii, 210, who accounts for this tradition that Cain was the ancestor of evil monsters.
- ↑ Beowulf, the coming champion, has the strength (v. 379) of “thirty” men in his hand’s grasp, and (v. 2361) swims to safety after Hygelac’s defeat laden with “thirty” suits of mail on his arm. The reader will note the meagreness and haste of this account of the actual attack. No details are given. This brevity is of course due to the poet; and one can only guess at his motive.
