BEOWULF
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old and gray. ’Twas granted him not
that ever the edge of iron at all
could help him at strife: too strong was his hand,
2685so the tale is told, and he tried too far
with strength of stroke all swords he wielded,
though sturdy their steel: they steaded him nought.
Then for the third time thought on its feud
that folk-destroyer, fire-dread dragon,
2690and rushed on the hero, where room allowed,
battle-grim, burning; its bitter teeth
closed on his neck, and covered him
with waves of blood from his breast that welled.[1]
XXXVII
’Twas now, men say, in his sovran’s need
2695that the earl made known his noble strain,
craft and keenness and courage enduring.
Heedless of harm,[2] though his hand was burned,
hardy-hearted, he helped his kinsman.
- ↑ the elder, the Uffo of Saxo Grammaticus. This excess of strength is a favorite trait in certain lines of romance, runs into exaggeration, and lends itself to burlesque. In Hugh Spencer’s Feats in France, a poor popular ballad, the hero cannot tilt with any one French lance, his strength smashing it in his hand; and he is accommodated only when a dozen lances are bound into one.
- ↑ Literally, “heeded not head,”—either his own (“heedless of head and limbs” translates Gering), or else the dragon’s: “nor feared the flame from the beast’s jaws,”—which is less likely.
- ↑ As in other fights with a dragon, the monster is killed by a blow underneath its body where no scales protect it. Saxo’s Frotho, succeed- ing to a depleted treasury, is told by a “native” about a dragon (serpens) who guards a mount (montis possessor) full of treasure. Its poison is deadly. Frotho must not seek to pierce its scales, but “there is a place