the
walls towered up high and majestic, ending in pinnacles and gables
resembling the antlers of a stag. At the great feast which Hrothgar
gave first in his new home the minstrels chanted the glory of the
hall, "Heorot," "The Hart," as the king named it; Hrothgar's desire
was well fulfilled, that he should build the most magnificent of
banquet-halls. Proud were the mighty warriors who feasted within it,
and proud the heart of the king, who from his high seat on the dais
saw his brave thanes carousing at the long tables below him, and the
lofty rafters of the hall rising black into the darkness.

Grendel

Day by day the feasting continued, until its noise and the festal joy
of its revellers aroused a mighty enemy, Grendel, the loathsome
fen-monster. This monstrous being, half-man, half-fiend, dwelt in the
fens near the hill on which Heorot stood. Terrible was he, dangerous
to men, of extraordinary strength, human in shape but gigantic of
stature, covered with a green horny skin, on which the sword would not
bite. His race, all sea-monsters, giants, goblins, and evil demons,
were offspring of Cain, outcasts from the mercy of the Most High,
hostile to the human race; and Grendel was one of mankind's most
bitter enemies; hence his hatred of the joyous shouts from Heorot, and
his determination to stop the feasting.

"This the dire mighty fiend, he who in darkness dwelt,
Suffered with hatred fierce, that every day and night
He heard the festal shouts loud in the lofty hall;
Sound of harp echoed there, and gleeman's sweet song.
Thus they lived joyously, fearing no angry foe
Until the hellish fiend wrought them great woe.
Grendel that ghost was called, grisly and terrible,
Who, hateful wanderer, dwelt in the moorlands,
The fens and wild fastnesses; the wretch for a while abode
In homes of the giant-race, since God had cast him out.
When night on the earth fell, Grendel departed
To visit the lofty hall, now that the warlike Danes
After the gladsome feast nightly slept in it.
A fair troop of warrior-thanes guarding it found he;
Heedlessly sleeping, they recked not of sorrow.
The demon of evil, the grim wight unholy,
With his fierce ravening, greedily grasped them,
Seized in their slumbering thirty right manly thanes;
Thence he withdrew again, proud of his lifeless prey,
Home to his hid