The text here is much mutilated, and can only be restored by ingenious
conjecture. Grein and Bugge and others have reconstructed it. On
the whole Bugge's text, which I have followed, seems to me the most
reasonable. It is unfortunate that the text should be so imperfect just
at this critical point in the linking up of the two great divisions
of the story. In the ancient days some remote predecessors of the
Geats seem to have heaped up in the neighbourhood a pile of wonderful
vessels jewel-bedecked, and treasures of all kinds, of inconceivable
value. Then the last of the race carries the treasure to a barrow or
cavern in the cliffs near the site, in after-generations, of Beowulf's
palace, and delivers a pathetic farewell address (pp. 136 et seq.). The
dragon finds the cavern and the treasure and appropriates it for three
hundred years. Then one of Beowulf's retainers finds the treasure and
takes a golden goblet while the dragon is sleeping, and offers it to
his lord as a peace-offering. This brought about Beowulf's feud with
the dragon in which he met his death.