led his nobles to him and told them in what manner he
fain would pass. So they did as he said, and in a ship they built a
funeral pyre, and round it placed much gold and jewels, and on it laid
a sheaf of wheat. Then with very great pain and labour, for he was old
and Death's hand lay heavy upon him, the king climbed into the ship
and stretched out his limbs on the pyre, and said farewell to all his
faithful people. And the ship drifted out with the tide, and the
hearts of the watchers were heavy as they saw the sails of the vessel
that bore him vanish into the grey, and knew that their king had gone
back to the place from whence he came, and that they should look on
his face no more.

Behind him Scyld left descendants, and one after the other reigned
over Denmark. It was in the reign of his great-grandson, Hrothgar,
that there took place those things that are told in the story of
Beowulf.

A mighty king and warrior was Hrothgar, and far across the northern
seas his fame spread wide, so that all the warriors of the land that
he ruled were proud to serve under him in peace, and in war to die for
him. During his long life he and his men never went forth in their
black-prowed ships without returning with the joyous shouts of the
victor, with for cargo the rich spoil they had won from their enemies.
As he grew old, Hrothgar determined to raise for himself a mighty
monument to the magnificence of his reign, and so there was builded
for him a vast hall with majestic towers and lofty pinnacles--the
finest banqueting-hall that his skilled artificers could dream of. And
when at length the hall was completed, Hrothgar gave a feast to all
his thanes, and for days and for nights on end the great rafters of
Heorot--as his palace was named--echoed the shouts and laughter of the
mighty warriors, and the music of the minstrels and the songs that
they sang. A proud man was Hrothgar on the night that the banquet was
ended amidst the acclamations of his people, and a proud and happy man
he lay down to rest, while his bodyguard of mighty warriors stretched
themselves on the rush-strewn floor of the great room where they had
feasted, and deeply slumbered there.

Now, in the dark fens of that land there dwelt a monster--fierce,
noisome, and cruel, a thing that loved evil and hated all that was
joyous and good. To its ears came the ring of the laughter and the
shouts of King Hrothgar's revellers, and the sweet song of the gleemen
and the m