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30

THE OLDEST ENGLISH EPIC

155to deal with any of Daneland’s earls,

make pact of peace, or compound for gold:
still less did the wise men ween to get
great fee for the feud from his fiendish hands.[1]
But the evil one ambushed old and young,
160death-shadow dark, and dogged them still,
lured, and lurked in the livelong night
of misty moorlands: men may say not
where the haunts of these Hell-Runes[2] be.
Such heaping of horrors the hater of men,
165lonely roamer, wrought unceasing,
harassings heavy. O’er Heorot he lorded,
gold-bright hall, in gloomy nights;
and ne’er could the prince[3] approach his throne,
—’twas judgment of God,—or have joy in his hall.
170Sore was the sorrow to Scyldings’-friend,
heart-rending misery. Many nobles
sat assembled, and searched out counsel
how it were best for bold-hearted men
against harassing terror to try their hand.
175Whiles they vowed in their heathen fanes
altar-offerings, asked with words[4]
that the slayer-of-souls[5] would succor give them

for the pain of their people. Their practice this,
  1. ↑ He would of course pay no wergild for the men he had slain. So boasted a Norse bully once.
  2. ↑ “Sorcerers-of-hell.” Rune is still used in Low German dialects for “witch.”
  3. ↑ Hrothgar, who is the “Scyldings’-friend” of 170. A difficult passage.
  4. ↑ That is, in formal or prescribed phrase.
  5. ↑ In Psalm xcvi, 5 (Grein-Wülker, number 95): “All the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens.” The Anglo-Saxon version reads: “All heathen gods are devils-of-war.” . . .
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