till living in close connexion with
one another by the shores of the Baltic, has been handed down to us
entire, thanks to the kind intervention of some Northumbrian monk, who,
by Christianising the most flagrantly heathen portions, has saved the
entire work from the fate which would otherwise have overtaken it. As a
striking representation of early English life and thought, this great
epic deserves a fuller description.[2]

[2] It is right to state, however, that many scholars regard
_Beowulf_ as a late translation from a Danish original.

_Beowulf_ is written in the same short alliterative metre as that of the
Brunanburh ballad, and takes its name from its hero, a servant or
companion of the mighty Hygelac, king of the Geatas (Jutes or Goths). At
a distance from his home lay the kingdom of the Scyldings, a Danish
tribe, ruled over by Hrothgar. There stood Heorot, the high hall of
heroes, the greatest mead-house ever raised. But the land of the Danes
was haunted by a terrible fiend, known as Grendel, who dwelt in a dark
fen in the forest belt, girt round with shadows and lit up at eve by
flitting flames. Every night Grendel came forth and carried off some of
the Danes to devour in his home. The description of the monster himself
and of the marshland where he had his lair is full of that weird and
gloomy superstition which everywhere darkens and overshadows the life
of the savage and the heathen barbarian. The terror inspired in the rude
English mind by the mark and the woodland, the home of wild beasts and
of hostile ghosts, of deadly spirits and of fierce enemies, gleams
luridly through every line. The fen and the forest are dim and dark;
will-o'-the-wisps flit above them, and gloom closes them in; wolves and
wild boars lurk there, the quagmire opens its jaws and swallows the
horse and his rider; the foeman comes through it to bring fire and
slaughter to the clan-village at the dead of night. To these real
terrors and dangers of the mark are added the fancied ones of
superstition. There the terrible forms begotten of man's vague dread of
the unknown--elves and nickors and fiends--have their murky
dwelling-place. The atmosphere of the strange old heathen epic is
oppressive in its gloominess. Nevertheless, its poetry sometimes rises
to a height of great, though barbaric, sublimity. Beowulf himself,
hearing of the evil wrought by Grendel, set sail from his home for the
land of the Danes. Hrothgar received him kindl