The Mother of Grendel
They sank then to slumber. With sorrow one paid for His evening repose, as often betid them While Grendel was holding the gold-bedecked palace, Ill-deeds performing, till his end overtook him, Death for his sins. ’Twas seen very clearly, Known unto earth-folk, that still an avenger Outlived the loathed one, long since the sorrow Caused by the struggle; the mother of Grendel, Devil-shaped woman, her woe ever minded, Who was held to inhabit the horrible waters, The cold-flowing currents, after Cain had become a Slayer-with-edges to his one only brother, The son of his sire; he set out then banished, Marked as a murderer, man-joys avoiding, Lived in the desert. Thence demons unnumbered Fate-sent awoke; one of them Grendel, Sword-cursèd, hateful, who at Heorot met with A man that was watching, waiting the struggle, Where a horrid one held him with hand-grapple sturdy; Nathless he minded the might of his body, The glorious gift God had allowed him, And folk-ruling Father’s favor relied on, His help and His comfort: so he conquered the foeman, The hell-spirit humbled: he unhappy departed then, Reaved of his joyance, journeying to death-haunts, Foeman of man. His mother moreover Eager and gloomy was anxious to go on Her mournful mission, mindful of vengeance For the death of her son. She came then to Heorot Where the Armor-Dane earlmen all through the building Were lying in slumber. Soon there became then Return to the nobles, when the mother of Grendel Entered the folk-hall; the fear was less grievous By even so much as the vigor of maidens, War-strength of women, by warrior is reckoned, When well-carved weapon, worked with the hammer, Blade very bloody, brave with its edges, Strikes down the boar-sign that stands on the helmet. Then the hard-edgèd weapon was heaved in the building, The brand o’er the