“...Health to () Hrothgar! I am () Hygelac’s kinsman and serve in his fellowship. Fame-winning deeds have come early to my hands. The affair of Grendel has been made known to me on my native turf.

The sailors speak of this splendid hall, this most stately building, standing idle and silent of voices, as soon as the evening light has hidden below the heaven’s bright edge.

Whereupon it was urged by the ablest men among our people, men proved in counsel, that I should seek you out, most sovereign () Hrothgar.
These men knew well the weight of my hands.
Had they not seen me come home from fights where I had bound five Giants-their blood was upon me-cleaned out a nest of them? Had I not crushed on the wave sea-serpents by night in narrow struggle, broken the beasts? (The bane of the Geats, they had asked for their trouble) And shall I not try a single match with this monster Grendel, a trial against this troll?

To you I will now put one request, Royal () Scylding, Shield of the South Danes, one sole favour that you’ll not deny me, dear lord of your people, now that I have come thus far, Fastness of Warriors; that I alone may be allowed, with my loyal and determined crew of companions, to cleanse your hall () Heorot.

As I am informed that this unlovely one is careless enough to carry no weapon, so that my lord () Hygelac, my leader in war, may take joy in me, I abjure utterly the bearing of sword or shielding yellow board in this battle! With bare hands shall I grapple with the fiend, fight to the death here, hater and hated! He who is chosen shall deliver himself to the Lord’s judgement.

If he can contrive it, we may count upon Grendel to eat quite fearlessly the flesh of () Geats here in this war-hall; has he not chewed on the strength of this nation? There will be no need, Sir, for you to bury my head; he will have me gladly, if death should take me, though darkened with blood.

He will bear my bloody corpse away, bent on eating it, make his meal alone, without misgiving, bespatter his moor-lair- The disposing of my body need occupy you no further then.
But if the fight should take me, you would forward to () Hygelac this best of battle-shirts, tha my breast now wears.
The queen of war-coats, it is the bequest of () Hrethel and from the forge of Wayland. Fate will take its course!”

“...Gliding through the shadow came the walker in the night; warriors slept whose task was to hold the horned building, all except one. It was well-known to men that the demon could not drag them to the shades without God’s willing it; yet the one man kept unblinking watch. He awaited, heart swelling with anger against his foe, the ordeal of the battle.
Down of the moorlands’ misting fells came Grendel stalking; God’s brand was on him.
The spoiler meant to snatch away from the high hall some of human race.
He came on under the clouds, clearly saw at last the gold-hall of the men, the () mead-drinking place nailed with gold plates. That was not the first visit he had paid to the hall of () Hrothgar the Dane: he never before and never after harder luck nor hall-guards found.

Walking to the hall came this warlike creature condemned to agony. The door gave way, toughened with iron, at the touch of those hands.
Rage inflamed, wreckage-bent, he ripped open the jaws of the hall. Hastening on, the foe then stepped onto the unstained floor, angrily advanced: out of his eyes stood an unlovely light like that of fire.
He saw then in the hall a host of young soldiers, a company of kinsmen caught away in sleep, a whole warrior-band. In his heart he laughed then, horrible monster, his hopes swelling to a gluttonous meal. He meant to wrench the life from each body that lay in the place before night was done. It was no to be; he was no longer to feast on the flesh of mankind after that night.

Narrowly the powerful kinsman of () Hygelac kept watch how the ravager set to work with his sudden catches; nor did the monster mean to hang back.
As a first step he set his hands on a sleeping soldier, savagely tore at him, gnashed at his bone-joints, bolted huge gobbets, sucked at his veins, and had soon eaten all of the dead man, even down to his hands and feet.

Forward he stepped, stretched out his hands to seize the warrior calmly at rest there, reached out for him with his unfriendly fingers: but the faster man forestalling, sat up, sent back his arm.
The upholder of evils at once knew he had not met, on middle earth’s extremest acres, with any man of harder hand-grip: his heart panicked.
He was quit of the place no more quickly for that.

Eager to be away, he ailed for his darkness and the company of devils; the dealing he had there were like nothing he had come across in his lifetime.
Then () Hygelac’s brave kinsman called to mind that evening’s utterance, upright he stood, fastened his hold till fingers were bursting.
The monster strained away: the man stepped closer.
The monster’s desire was for darkness between them, direction regardless, to get out and run for his fen-bordered lair; he felt his grip’s strength crushed by his enemy. It was an ill journey the rough marauder had made to () Heorot.

The crash in the banqueting-hall came to the Danes, the men of the guard that remained in the building with the taste of death. The deepening rage of the claimants to () Heorot caused it to resound.
It was indeed wonderful that the wine-supper-hall withstood the wrestling pair, the world’s palace fell not to the ground. But it was girt firmly, both inside and out, by iron braces of skilled manufacture. Many a figured gold-worked wine-bench, as we heard it, started from the floor at the struggles of that pair.
The men of the Danes had not imagined that any of mankind by what method soever might undo that intricate, antlered hall, sunder it by strength-unless it were swallowed up in the embraces of fire.

Fear entered into the listening () North Danes, as that noise rose up again strange and strident. It shrilled terror to the ears that heard it through the hall’s side-wall, the grisly plaint of God’s enemy, his song of ill-success, the sobs of the damned one bewailing his pain. He was pinioned there by the man of all mankind living in this world’s estate the strongest of his hands.

Not for anything would the earl’s guardian let his deadly guest go living: he did not count his continued existence of the least use to anyone. The earls ran to defend the person of their famous prince; the drew their ancestral swords to bring what aid they could to their captain, () Beowulf.
They were ignorant of this, when they entered the fight, boldly-intentioned battle-friends, to hew at () Grendel, hunt his life on every side-that no sword on earth, not the truest steel, could touch their assailant; for by a spell he had disposed all blades of their bite on him.

A bitter parting from life was that day destined for him; the eldritch spirit was sent off on his far faring into the fiends’s domain.

It was then that this monster, who, moved by spite against human kind, had caused so much harm-so feuding with God-found at last that flesh and bone were to fail him in the end; for () Hygelac’s great-hearted kinsman had him by the hand; and hateful to each was the breath of the other.

A breach in the giant flesh-frame showed then, shoulder-muscles sprang apart; there was a snapping of tendons, bone-locks burst. To () Beowulf the glory of this fight was granted; () Grendel’s lot to flee the slopes fen-ward with flagging heart, to a den where he knew there could be no relief, no refuge for a life at its very last stage, whose surrender-day had dawned. The Danish hopes in this fatal fight had found their answer.

He had cleansed () Heorot. He who had come from afar, deep-minded, strong-hearted, had saved the hall from persecution. He was pleased with his night’s work, the deed he had done. Before the Danish people the () Geats captain had made good his boast, had taken away all their unhappiness, the evil menace under which they had lived, enduring it by dire constraint, no slight affliction. As a signal to all the hero hung up the hand, the arm and torn-off shoulder, the entire limb, () Grendel’s whole grip, below the gable of the roof.”