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life. The hall was a confusion of swords and blood, the brave lords hurling themselves at Grendel, and the fiend snatching them up in his claws and snapping their backs as if they were no more than toys. Man after man went into those terrible jaws, and still Grendel came on, unsatisfied, his green eyes glaring, his slimy skin not even scratched by the hacking axes. It was as if the night itself had poured into hall Heorot, killing and eating mere men, the creatures of day. Torches went out as Grendel came past them. Soon the hall was pitch black, and the only sound the crunching and munching of bones and flesh.
    High above, Queen Wealhtheow began to scream and pray. Unferth had fainted, either from fear or excitement. A burning brand he had been holding in his hand rolled down the stair. The queen caught hold of it. The flame licked at her fingers. She cried out in agony, and threw the thing down into the dark where the monster was. The brand missed Grendel, but it crashed to the floor beside the prostrate figure of Hrothgar, singeing his red hair where the great horned helmet had been knocked off.
    Perhaps this saved her husband’s life. His golden breastplate shone like a holy light in all that dark. Even the baleful green of the monster’s eyes seemed to dim before it.
    For whatever reason, Grendel hesitated a moment.
    Wealtheow, seizing her chance, wanting to die with the man she loved, flew down the stair and flung herself on her husband’s unconscious body. Her blue cloak covered him like a wing.
    Thinking him dead, she kissed him and moaned his name. “Hrothgar! My lord, my love! Hrothgar!”
    Then she fainted.
    When she woke, the king was still in her arms, badly wounded but alive. Her bluecloak was dark with his blood. She began to tear it up to bind his wounds. Unferth stood over them, holding the brand, with a tortured look in his eyes as if it were his own hand burning.

IV
B EOWULF
    Hrothgar’s poets took the story of Grendel with them wherever they went. One of them told it in the court of Hygelac, king of the Geats, which lay far from the land of the Danes, over the stormy sea. He found eager listeners to his tale.
    “We have heard of the great hall Heorot,” said Hygelac. “Men say that its timbers reach up for the clouds, and that its golden roofs can be seen a day’s march away, brighter than the sun itself.”
    “Then men tell true,” answered the poet, “for that is how Heorot is by day. But by night it’s a different story. After darkfall the hall stands abandoned. None dare go there.”
    “For fear of Grendel?”
    “For fear of Grendel.”
    Now, King Hygelac had a nephew, and his nephew’s name was Beowulf. Beowulf wasonly a young man, but already he had won fame on account of his goodness and daring. In his person, Beowulf was below average size; he looked taller sitting down than standing up, because his broad chest and shoulders were out of proportion to his legs, which were short. He had straight brown hair and strong wrists. People found it difficult to say what was memorable or remarkable about his face—but all remembered it. He had a way of looking straight at the person he was talking to, his shoulders set square, his hands on his knees, his eyes unwavering, that always struck others as honest and open. And when someone spoke to him, he sat just as still and attentive, listening with his eyes.
    In fact, Beowulf’s eyes were not strong, and part of their sensitivity was due to his not seeing too well. As a boy, he had been fond of playing with bees—Beowulf means “the bee-hunter”—and one day an angry swarm had attacked his face, stinging his cheeks and eyelids rather badly. Whether or not this was responsible for his short sight, who could say? But certainly the stings had been deep and painful enough to keep him in a darkened room for weeks, and when he emerged into daylight again he found things seemed more misty and distant than they had before. A setbacklike this did