Old Teutonic Metre 91 



Which we may translate, keeping the alliteration as 

 well as may be — 



Weladay now worthy ^ God a woeful thing has fallen. 



Sixty summers and winters - have I strayed from home, 



While arms I bore with the king's warriors ; 



Yet never a burg brought me my bane. 



Now must I my own child slay with the sword. 



Here, ai^ain, is a fragment from one of the earliest, and 

 certainly one of the finest, poems written in the English 

 language. The celebrated poem Beowulf seems to 

 have been derived, so far as its story goes, from Scandi- 

 navia, for its hero is a Swede. His great adventure is 

 in the killing of a certain monster, call him a ghoul or 

 a giant, which you will. His name is Grendel, and the 

 passage which follows describes Grendel coming from 

 his fastnesses among the moors and mountains to the 

 king's palace, in order to seize the sleeping warriors 

 and carry them off to devour in his den. This time I 

 will give a translation only, and the text in a note : — 



The grim guest was Grendel clepen ; 



The mighty markstepper, who kept the moors, 



The fen and the fastness. The fyfel-race's land 



Held for a while this wight accursed, 



After the Creator him had fashioned. 



Forth he went to spy, so soon as night had fallen. 



At the high hall, to see how the Ring-Danes 



After the beer-bout had ordered tliemselves. 



There found he a host of men of noble kin 



Asleep after the feast ; no care knew they.^ 



1 Properly, 'valiant.' - i.e. Thirty summers and thirty winters. 

 3 Was se (/rinima (/aest Cr'rendel hatan 



Mffira ??ieorcstapa ; se the wiorass heold 



/^eu and/aesten. i^'yfel-cynnes eard 



IFonsseleg wer iceardode hwile, etc. 



