barrier of oars against the greedy tide. Come with me to the king."
It was a gallant band that strode into Heorot, where sat the old
king, gloom overshadowing his soul. And fit leader for a band of
heroes was Beowulf, a giant figure in ring-mail, spear and shield
gleaming in his hand, and by his side the mighty sword, Naegeling. To
Hrothgar, as to the warden, Beowulf told the reason of his coming, and
hope began again to live in the heart of the king.
That night the warriors from the land of the Goths were feasted in the
great banqueting-hall where, for twelve unhappy years, voices had
never rung out so bravely and so merrily. The queen herself poured out
the mead with which the king and the men from Gothland pledged each
other, and with her own hand she passed the goblet to each one. When,
last of it all, it came to the guest of honour, Beowulf took the cup
of mead from the fair queen and solemnly pledged himself to save the
land from the evil thing that devoured it like a pestilence, or to die
in his endeavour.
"Needs must I now perform knightly deeds in this hall,
Or here must meet my doom in darksome night."
When darkness fell the feast came to an end, and all left the hall
save Beowulf and his fourteen followers. In their armour, with swords
girt on their sides, the fourteen heroes lay down to rest, but Beowulf
laid aside all his arms and gave his sword to a thane to bear away.
For, said he,
"I have heard
That that foul miscreant's dark and stubborn flesh
Recks not the force of arms ...
Hand to hand ... Beowulf will grapple with the mighty foe."
From his fastnesses in the fens, the Grendel had heard the shouts of
revelry, and as the Goths closed their eyes to sleep, knowing they
might open them again only to grapple with hideous death, yet unafraid
because of their sure belief that "What is to be goes ever as it
must," the monster roused himself. Through the dank, chill, clinging
mists he came, and his breath made the poisonous miasma of the marshes
more deadly as he padded over the shivering reeds and trembling
rushes, across the bleak moorland and the high cliffs where the fresh
tang of the grey sea was defiled by the hideous stench of a foul beast
of prey. There was fresh food for him to-night, he knew, some blood
more potent than any that for twelve years had come his bestial way.
And he hastened on with greedy eagerness, nightmare incarnate. He
found the great door of the banqueting-hall bolted and barred, but one
angry wrench set at naught the little precautionary measures of mere
men.
The dawn was breaking dim and grey and very chill when Beowulf heard
the stealthy tread without, and the quick-following crash of the bolts
and bars that gave so readily. He made no movement, but only waited.
In an instant the dawn was blotted out by a vast black shadow, and
swifter than any great bear could strike, a scaly hand had struck one
of the friends of Beowulf. In an instant the man was torn from limb to
limb, and in a wild disgust and hatred Beowulf heard the lapping of
blood, the scrunching of bones and chewing of warm flesh as the
monster ravenously devoured him. Again the loathsome hand was
stretched out to seize and to devour. But in the darkness two hands,
like hands of iron, gripped the outstretched arm, and the Grendel knew
that he had met his match at last. The warriors of Beowulf awoke to
find a struggle going on such as their eyes never before beheld, for
it was a fight to the death between man and monster. Vainly they tried
to aid their leader, but their weapons only glanced harmlessly off the
Grendel's scaly hide. Up and down the hall the combatants wrestled,
until the walls shook and the great building itself rocked to its
foundations. Ever and again it seemed as though no human power could
prevail against teeth and claws and demonic fury, and as tables and
benches crashed to the ground and broke under the tramping feet of the
Grendel, it appeared an impossible thing that Beowulf should overcome.
Yet ever tighter and more tight grew the iron grip of Beowulf. His
fingers seemed turned to iron. His hatred and loathing made his grasp
crash through scales, into flesh, and crush the marrow out of the bone
it found there. And when at length the Grendel could no more, and with
a terrible cry wrenched himself free, and fled, wailing, back to the
fenland, still in his grasp Beowulf held the limb. The Grendel had
freed himself by tearing the whole arm out of its socket, and, for
once, the trail of blood across the moors was that of the monster and
not of its victims.
Great indeed was the rejoicing of Hrothgar and of his people when, in
the morning, instead of crimson-stained rushes and the track of vermin
claws imbrued in human blood, they found all but one of the men from
Gothland alive, and looked upon the hideous trophy that told them
that their enemy could only have gone to find a shameful death in the
marshes. They cleansed out the great hall, hung it with lordly
trappings, and made it once more fit habitation for the lordliest in
the land. That night a feast was held in it, such as had never before
been held all through the magnificent reign of Hrothgar. The best of
the scalds sung songs in honour of the triumph of Beowulf, and the
queen herself pledged the hero in a cup of mead and gave to him the
beautiful most richly jewelled collar Brisingamen, of exquisite
ancient workmanship, that once was owned by Freya, queen of the gods,
and a great ring of the purest red gold. To Beowulf, too, the king
gave a banner, all broidered in gold, a sword of the finest, with
helmet and corselet, and eight fleet steeds, and on the back of the
one that he deemed the best Hrothgar had placed his own saddle,
cunningly wrought, and decked with golden ornaments. To each of the
warriors of Beowulf there were also given rich gifts. And ere the
queen, with her maidens, left the hall that night she said to Beowulf:
"Enjoy thy reward, O dear Beowulf, while enjoy it thou canst. Live
noble and blessed! Keep well thy great fame, and to my dear sons, in
time to come, should ever they be in need, be a kind protector!"
With happy hearts in very weary bodies, Beowulf and his men left the
hall when the feast was ended, and they slept through the night in
another lodging as those sleep who have faced death through a very
long night, and to whom joy has come in the morning.
But the Danish knights, careless in the knowledge that the Grendel
must even now be in his dying agonies, and that once more Hereot was
for them a safe and noble sleeping-place, lay themselves down to sleep
in the hall, their shields at their heads, and, fastened high up on
the roof above them, the hideous trophy of Beowulf.
Next morning as the grey dawn broke over the northern sea, it saw a
sight that made it more chill than death. Across the moorland went a
thing--half wolf, half woman--the mother of Grendel. The creature she
had borne had come home to die, and to her belonged his avenging.
Softly she went to Hereot. Softly she opened the unguarded door.
Gladly, in her savage jaws, she seized Aschere, the thane who was to
Hrothgar most dear, and from the roof she plucked her desired
treasure--the arm of Grendel, her son. Then she trotted off to her
far-off, filthy den, leaving behind her the noise of lamentation.
Terrible was the grief of Hrothgar over the death of Aschere, dearest
of friends and sharer of his councils. And to his lamentations Beowulf
listened, sad at heart, humble, yet with a heart that burned for
vengeance. The hideous creature of the night was the mother of
Grendel, as all knew well. On her Beowulf would be avenged, for
Aschere's sake, for the king's, and for the sake of his own honour.
Then once again did he pledge himself to do all that man's strength
could do to rid the land of an evil thing. Well did he know how
dangerous was the task before him, and he gave directions for the
disposal of all that he valued should he never return from his quest.
To the King, who feared greatly that he was going forth on a forlorn
hope, he said:
"Grieve not!... Each man must undergo death at the end of life.
Let him win, while he may, warlike fame in the world!
That is best after death for the slain warrior."
His own men, and Hrothgar, and a great company of Danes went with him
when he set out to trace the blood-stained tracks of the Grendel's
mother. Near the edge of a gloomy mere they found the head of Aschere.
And when they looked at the fiord itself, it seemed to be
blood-stained--stained with blood that ever welled upwards, and in
which revelled with a fierce sort of joy--the rapture of bestial
cruelty--water-monsters without number.
Beowulf, his face white and grim like that of an image of Thor cast in
silver, watched a little while, then drew his bow and drove a bolt
into the heart of one of them, and when they had drawn the slain
carcase to shore, the thanes of Hrothgar marvelled at the horror of
it.
Then Beowulf took leave of Hrothgar and told him that if in two days
he did not return, certain it would be that he would return no more.
The hearts of all who said farewell to him were heavy, but Beowulf
laughed, and bade them be of good cheer. Then into the black waters he
dived, sword in hand, clad in ring-armour, and the dark pool closed
over him as the river of Death closes over the head of a man when his
day is done. To him it seemed as if the space of a day had passed ere
he reached the bottom, and in his passing he encountered many dread
dangers from tusk and horn of a myriad evil creatures of the water who
sought to destroy him. Then at length he reached the bottom of that
sinister mere, and there was clasped in the murderous grip of the
Wolf-Woman who strove to crush his life out against her loathsome
breast. Again and again, when her hideous embrace failed to slay him,
she stabbed him with her knife. Yet ever did he escape. His good
armour resisted the power of her arm, and his own great muscles thrust
her from him. Yet his own sword failed him when he would have smitten
her, and the hero would have been in evil case had he not spied,
hanging on the wall of that most foul den,
"A glorious sword,
An old brand gigantic, trusty in point and edge,
An heirloom of heroes."
Swiftly he seized it, and with it he dealt the Wolf-Woman a blow that
shore her head from her body. Through the foul blood that flowed from
her and that mingled with the black water of the mere, Beowulf saw a
very terrible horror--the body of the Grendel, lying moaning out the
last of his life. Again his strong arm descended, and, his left hand
gripping the coiled locks of the Evil Thing, he sprang upwards through
the water, that lost its blackness and its clouded crimson as he went
ever higher and more high. In his hand he still bore the sword that
had saved him, but the poisonous blood of the dying monsters had made
the water of such fiery heat that the blade melted as he rose, and
only the hilt, with strange runes engraved upon it, remained in his
hand.
Where he left them, his followers, and the Danes who went with them,
remained, watching, waiting, ever growing more hopeless as night
turned into day, and day faded into night, and they saw the black
waters of the lonely fen bubbling up, terrible and blood-stained. But
when the waters cleared, hope returned to their hearts, and when, at
length, Beowulf uprose from the water of the mere and they saw that in
his hand he bore the head of the Grendel, there was no lonely scaur,
nor cliff, nor rock of the land of the Danes that did not echo the
glad cry of "_Beowulf! Beowulf!_"
Well-nigh overwhelmed by gifts from those whom he had preserved was
the hero, Beowulf. But in modest, wise words he spoke to the King:
"Well hast thou treated us.
If on this earth I can do more to win thy love,
O prince of warriors, than I have wrought as yet,
Here stand I ready now weapons to wield for thee.
If I shall ever hear o'er the encircling flood
That any neighbouring foes threaten thy nation's fall,
As Grendel grim before, swift will I bring to thee
Thousands of noble thanes, heroes to help thee."
Then, in their ship, that the Warden of the Coast once had challenged,
Beowulf and his warriors set sail for their own dear land.
Gaily the vessel danced over the waves, heavy though it was with
treasure, nobly gained. And when Beowulf had come in safety to his
homeland and had told his kinsman the tale of the slaying of the
Grendel and of the Wolf-Woman, he gave the finest of his steeds to the
King, and to the Queen the jewelled collar, Brisingamen, that the
Queen of the Goths had bestowed on him. And the heart of his uncle was
glad and proud indeed, and there was much royal banqueting in the
hero's honour. Of him, too, the scalds made up songs, and there was no
hero in all that northern land whose fame was as great as was the fame
of Beowulf.
"The Must Be often helps an undoomed man when he is brave" was the
precept on which he ruled his life, and he never failed the King whose
chief champion and warrior he was. When, in an expedition against the
Frieslanders, King Hygelac fell a victim to the cunning of his foes,
the sword of Beowulf fought nobly for him to the end, and the hero was
a grievously wounded man when he brought back to Gothland the body of
the dead King. The Goths would fain have made him their King, in
Hygelac's stead, but Beowulf was too loyal a soul to supplant his
uncle's own son. On his shield he laid the infant prince, Hardred, and
held him up for the people to see. And when he had proclaimed the
child King and vowed to serve him faithfully all the days of his life,
there was no man there who did not loyally echo the promise of their
hero, Beowulf.
When Hardred, a grown man, was treacherously slain by a son of Othere,
he who discovered the North Cape, Beowulf once again was chosen King,
and for forty years he reigned wisely and well. The fame of his arms
kept war away from the land, and his wisdom as a statesman brought
great prosperity and happiness to his people. He had never known fear,
and so for him there was nothing to dread when the weakness of age
fell upon him and when he knew that his remaining years could be but
few:
"Seeing that Death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come."[9]
Through all those years of peace, the thing that was to bring death to
him had lurked, unknown, unimagined, in a cave in the lonely
mountains.
Many centuries before the birth of Beowulf, a family of mighty
warriors had won by their swords a priceless treasure of weapons and
of armour, of richly chased goblets and cups, of magnificent ornaments
and precious jewels, and of gold "beyond the dreams of avarice." In a
great cave among the rocks it was hoarded by the last of their line,
and on his death none knew where it was hidden. Upon it one day there
stumbled a fiery dragon--a Firedrake--and for three hundred years the
monster gloated, unchallenged, over the magnificent possession. But at
the end of that time, a bondsman, who fled before his master's
vengeance and sought sanctuary in the mountains, came on an opening in
the rocks, and, creeping in, found the Firedrake asleep upon a mass of
red gold and of sparkling gems that dazzled his eyes even in the
darkness. For a moment he stood, trembling, then, sure of his master's
forgiveness if he brought him as gift a golden cup all studded with
jewels, he seized one and fled with it ere the monster could awake.
With its awakening, terror fell upon the land. Hither and thither it
flew, searching for him who had robbed it, and as it flew, it sent
flames on the earth and left behind it a black trail of ruin and of
death.
When news of its destroyings came to the ears of the father of his
people, Beowulf knew that to him belonged the task of saving the land
for them and for all those to come after them. But he was an old man,
and strength had gone from him, nor was he able now to wrestle with
the Firedrake as once he had wrestled with the Grendel and the
Wolf-Woman, but had to trust to his arms. He had an iron shield made
to withstand the Firedrake's flaming breath, and, with a band of
eleven picked followers, and taking the bondsman as guide, Beowulf
went out to fight his last fight. As they drew near the place, he bade
his followers stay where they were, "For I alone," he said, "will win
the gold and save my people, or Death shall take me."
From the entrance to the cave there poured forth a sickening cloud of
steam and smoke, suffocating and blinding, and so hot that he could
not go forward. But with a loud voice the old warrior shouted an
arrogant challenge of defiance to his enemy, and the Firedrake rushed
forth from its lair, roaring with the roar of an unquenchable fire
whose fury will destroy a city. From its wings of flame and from its
eyes heat poured forth scorchingly, and its great mouth belched forth
devouring flames as it cast itself on Beowulf.
[Illustration: A STROKE SHIVERED THE SWORD]
The hero's sword flashed, and smote a stark blow upon its scaly head.
But Beowulf could not deal death strokes as once he had done, and
only for a moment was his adversary stunned. In hideous rage the
monster coiled its snaky folds around him, and the heat from his body
made the iron shield redden as though the blacksmith in his smithy
were welding it, and each ring of the armour that Beowulf wore seared
right into his flesh. His breast swelled with the agony, and his great
heart must have come near bursting for pain and for sorrow. For he saw
that panic had come on his followers and that they were fleeing,
leaving him to his fate. Yet not all of them were faithless. Wiglaf,
young and daring, a dear kinsman of Beowulf, from whom he had received
many a kindness, calling shame on the dastards who fled, rushed
forward, sword in hand, and with no protection but that of his shield
of linden wood. Like a leaf scorched in a furnace the shield curled
up, but new strength came to Beowulf with the knowledge that Wiglaf
had not failed him in his need. Together the two heroes made a gallant
stand, although blood flowed in a swift red stream from a wound that
the monster had made in Beowulf's neck with its venomous fangs, and
ran down his corselet. A stroke which left the Firedrake unharmed
shivered the sword that had seen many fights, but Wiglaf smote a
shrewd blow ere his lord could be destroyed, and Beowulf swiftly drew
his broad knife and, with an effort so great that all the life that
was left in him seemed to go with it, he shore the Firedrake asunder.
Then Beowulf knew that his end drew very near, and when he had thanked
Wiglaf for his loyal help, he bade him enter the cave and bring forth
the treasure that he might please his dying eyes by looking on the
riches that he had won for his people. And Wiglaf hastened into the
cave, for he knew that he raced with Death, and brought forth armfuls
of weapons, of magnificent ornaments, of goblets and of cups, of bars
of red gold. Handfuls of sparkling jewels, too, he brought, and each
time he came and went, seizing without choosing, whatever lay nearest,
it seemed as though the Firedrake's hoard were endless. A magical
golden standard and armour and swords that the dwarfs had made brought
a smile of joy into the dying King's eyes. And when the ten shamed
warriors, seeing that the fight was at an end, came to where their
mighty ruler lay, they found him lying near the vile carcase of the
monster he had slain, and surrounded by a dazzlement of treasure
uncountable. To them, and to Wiglaf, Beowulf spoke his valediction,
urging on them to maintain the honour of the land of the Goths, and
then he said:
"I thank God eternal, the great King of Glory,
For the vast treasures which I here gaze upon,
That I ere my death-day might for my people
Win so great wealth-- Since I have given my life,
Thou must now look to the needs of the nation;
Here dwell I no longer, for Destiny calleth me!
Bid thou my warriors after my funeral pyre
Build me a burial-cairn high on the sea-cliffs head;
It shall for memory tower up to Hronesness,
So that the sea-farers Beowulf's Barrow
Henceforth shall name it, they who drive far and wide
Over the mighty flood their foaming Reels.
Thou art the last of all the kindred of Wagmund!
Wyrd[10] has swept all my kin, all the brave chiefs away!
Now must I follow them!"
Such was the passing of Beowulf, greatest of Northern heroes, and
under a mighty barrow on a cliff very high above the sea, they buried
him, and with him a great fortune from the treasure he had won. Then
with heavy hearts, "round about the mound rode his hearth-sharers, who
sang that he was of kings, of men, the mildest, kindest, to his people
sweetest, and the readiest in search of praise":
"Gentlest, most gracious, most keen to win glory."
And if, in time, the great deeds of a mighty king of the Goths have
become more like fairy tale than solid history, this at least we know,
that whether it is in Saeland or on the Yorkshire coast--where
"High on the sea-cliff ledges
The white gulls are trooping and crying"
--the barrow of Beowulf covers a very valiant hero, a very perfect
gentleman.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] Shakespeare (_Julius Caesar_).
[10] Goddess of Fate.
ROLAND THE PALADIN
"Roland, the flower of chivalry,
Expired at Roncevall."
Thomas Campbell.
"Hero-worship endures for ever while man
endures."
Carlyle.
"Roland, the gode knight."
Turpin's _History of Charlemagne_.
The old chroniclers tell us that on that momentous morning when
William the Conqueror led his army to victory at Hastings, a Norman
knight named Taillefer (and a figure of iron surely was his) spurred
his horse to the front. In face of the enemy who hated all things that
had to do with France, he lifted up his voice and chanted aloud the
exploits of Charlemagne and of Roland. As he sang, he threw his sword
in the air and always caught it in his right hand as it fell, and,
proudly, the whole army, moving at once, joined with him in the
_Chanson de Roland_, and shouted, as chorus, "God be our help! God be
our help!"
"Taillefer ... chantoit de Rollant
Et d'Olivier, et de Vassaux
Qui mourent en Rainschevaux."
Wace, _Roman de Rose_.
Fifteen thousand of those who sang fell on that bloody day, and one
wonders how many of those who went down to the Shades owed half their
desperate courage to the remembrance of the magnificent deeds of the
hero of whom they sang, ere ever sword met sword, or spear met the
sullen impact of the stark frame of a Briton born, fighting for his
own.
The story of Roland, so we are told, is only a splendid coating of
paint put on a very slender bit of drawing. A contemporary chronicle
tells of the battle of Roncesvalles, and says: "In which battle was
slain Roland, prefect of the marches of Brittany." Merely a Breton
squire, we are told to believe--a very gallant country gentleman whose
name would not have been preserved in priestly archives had he not won
for himself, by his fine courage, such an unfading laurel crown. But
because we are so sure that "it is the memory that the soldier leaves
after him, like the long trail of light that follows the sunken sun,"
and because so often oral tradition is less misleading than the
written word, we gladly and undoubtingly give Roland high place in the
Valhalla of heroes of all races and of every time.
777 or 778 A.D. is the date fixed for the great fight at Roncesvalles,
where Roland won death and glory. Charlemagne, King of the Franks, and
Head of the Holy Roman Empire, was returning victoriously from a seven
years' campaign against the Saracens in Spain.
"No fortress stands before him unsubdued,
Nor wall, nor city left to be destroyed,"