Girt with God's anger, Grendel came gliding
over the moors beneath misty mounds.
The man-scather sought someone to snatch
from the high hall. He crept under cloud
until he caught sight of the king's court
whose gilded gables he knew at a glance.
He had often haunted Hrothgar's house;
but he never found before or after,
hardier hall-thanes or harder luck.
The joyless giant drew near the door,
which swiftly swung back at a fingertip's touch
though bound and fastened with fire-forged bars.
The building's mouth had been broken-open,
and Grendel entered with ill intent.
Swollen with fury, he stalked over flagstones
and looked round the manse where many men lay.
An unlovely light most like a flame
flashed from his eyes, flaring through the hall
at young soldiers dozing shoulder to shoulder,
comradely kindred. The cruel creature laughed
in his murderous mind, thinking how many
now living would die before the day dawned,
how glutted with gore he would guzzle his fill.
It was not his fate to finish the feast
he foresaw that night.