e been composed in the seventh. The present manuscript, now
preserved in the British Museum, dates back to the tenth century. It
contains some 3182 lines, and is written in alliterative verse (that
is to say, that all the lines are written in pairs and that each
perfect pair contains two similar sounds in the first line and one in
the second). Although the author of Beowulf is unknown, the poem
affords priceless hints in regard to the armor, ships, and mode of
life of our early Saxon fore-fathers. Many translations of the poem
have been made, some in prose and others in verse, and the epic as it
stands, consisting of an introduction and forty-two "Fits," is the
main text for the study of the Anglo-Saxon language.

_The Epic._ Hrothgar, King of Denmark, traces his origin to Skiold,
son of Odin, who as an infant drifted to Denmark's shores. This child
lay on a sheaf of ripe wheat, surrounded by priceless weapons, jewels,
and a wonderful suit of armor, which proved he must be the scion of
some princely race. The childless King and Queen of Denmark therefore
gladly adopted him, and in due time he succeeded them and ruled over
the whole country. When he died, his subjects, placing his body in the
vessel in which he had come, set him adrift.

Men are not able
Soothly to tell us, they in halls who reside,
Heroes under heaven, to what haven he hied.[22]

Hrothgar, his descendant, constructed a magnificent hall, called
Heorot, wherein to feast his retainers and entertain them with the
songs of the northern skalds.

It burned in his spirit
To urge his folk to found a great building,
A mead-hall grander than men of the era
Ever had heard of, and in it to share
With young and old all of the blessings
The Lord had allowed him, save life and retainers.

The night of the inauguration of this building, the royal body-guard
lay down in the hall to sleep; and, when the servants entered the
place on the morrow, they were horrified to find floor and walls
spattered with blood, but no other trace of the thirty knights who had
rested there the night before. Their cry of horror aroused Hrothgar,
who, on investigating, discovered gigantic footsteps leading straight
from the hall to the sluggish waters of a mountain tarn, above which a
phosphorescent light always hovered. These footsteps were those of
Grendel, a descendant of Cain, who dwelt in the marsh, and who had
evidently slain and devoured all