Began to suffer bitter sorrow
When day after day he heard happiness
Of the hall resounding: the harp ringing,
Sweet minstrelsinging-as the tongue skilled
In the distant conception and creation of men
Sang how the Almighty made the earth-fields
Brillliant in beauty, bound by the sea,
Set exulting sun and moon
As lamps for the light of living men,
And loaded the acres of the world with jewelwork
Of branch and leaf, bringing then to life
Each kind of creature that moves and breathes.
_So those retainers lived on in joy
Happy all, till this one spirit,
Hell in his mind, his malice began.
Grendel the fiend's name: grim, infamous,
Wasteland-stalker, master of the moors
And the fen-fortress;the world of demonkind
Was for long the home of the unhappy creature
After his Creator had cast him out
With the kin of Cain, the everlasting Lord
Destining for the death of Abel killed;
A joyless feud, for he banished him, far
His Maker for his crime, far from mankind.
Progenitor he was of the miscreations,
Kobolds and gogmagogs, lemurs and zombies
And the brood of titans that battled with God
Ages long; for which he rewarded them.
He went to visit at the fall of night
That lofy hall, to see how the Danes
Fared as lay at the end of their carousing.
Within it he found the band of warriors
Symbolism
- Filled with pagan symbolism
- World filled with fercundity
- Talks about earth filled with spirits
- The evil spirit
- The moors
- Hereot
- Section is tragic
- Good Vs. Evil
- Attraction Between
- Tells that evil briefly triumphs and that if not overthrown, they will take control
- Pagan theme- Violence and strength conquer good
- Embodiment of true evil
Was for long the home of the unhappy creature
After his Creator had cast him out."
- Rising from hell
- Lucifer
- References Cain and Abel
His Maker for his crime, far from mankind.
Progenitor he was of the miscreations,
Kobolds and gogmagogs, lemurs and zombies
And the brood of titans that battled with God."
- Danish
