Beowulf (3 page)

Wind filled the sails, and the ship sped forward. The second day, they came in sight of the land of the Danes. As they were disembarking, a man came galloping along the beach toward them. He carried a long spear, and his horse kicked up a stinging shower of shingle as he drew rein.

“Halt!” he cried, his voice like thunder. “Who are you who dare to land so brazenly on Hrothgar’s coast? What do you want and why do you come bearing so many weapons? If you are pirates, then be warned by me. I have only to set this horn to my lips and sound the warning note, and you will be met by such an army that not one of you shall ever see home again!”

Beowulf nodded, tossing shells into the sea. Some of his men had reached for their swords, but with an easy flick of his wrist he motioned to them to stop.

“We are no pirates,” he said. “Who are you?”

The horseman drew himself up proudly. “I am Hrothgar’s coastguard,” he shouted. “No one bent on mischief gets past me.”

Beowulf did not shout, but his voice
sounded clear and distinct over the noisy waves and the crying of sea birds. “I am Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow,” he said. “I am come to do what I can against the demon Grendel.”

A shiver went down the coastguard’s weatherbeaten cheek. It was plain that though he was a brave man, he did not like to hear about Grendel.

Beowulf went on calmly: “If you love your country—as I’m sure you do—then you’ll help, not hinder us. Show us the way to the great hall Heorot.”

The coastguard was impressed by the quiet strength of this stranger’s speaking. He thought a moment, then he said, “I will escort you to Hrothgar himself. He can decide the seriousness of your errand. I’m just a common warrior set to guard the shores, and I can’t see how your little band can stand against a fiend like Grendel.” He leaned forward confidentially in his saddle. “If you take my private advice,” he added, “you’ll pack back in your ship before you’re all killed. The man’s not born who can get the better of Grendel. The king is quite resigned to it. Fighting that monster, why, it’s like fighting the sea! You can’t win!”

Beowulf’s men muttered angrily amongst
themselves. They found the coastguard’s words insulting.

Beowulf did not seem insulted. He looked out over the rolling waves as though considering what the coastguard had said. “Thank you for your advice,” he said at last, “but I will not take it.”

The coastguard shrugged. “Then you are either the bravest man in the world or a simple fool. Get your men in marching order, and I will lead you to Heorot. Don’t worry about your ship. Let it ride here at anchor, and I’ll have my soldiers guard it.” He smiled grimly, wheeling his horse about. “I shan’t say they’ll keep it safe for you until you come back, because I doubt very much whether you will come back, any of you, if it’s really Grendel you’re after.”

Beowulf’s men wore coats of mail. Their helmets had golden boar-crests on them. They carried swords and ash spears tipped with iron. Armor and equipment proved heavy in the midday sun. They clanked along, uncomplaining, the sweat pouring down their faces, in single file behind the coastguard’s horse. Beowulf looked about him as he marched, taking everything in, tall cliffs and deep valleys,
each tumbling stream and pebble winking brightly in the sun. His head moved on his shoulders like a bird’s: alert, inquisitive, shrewd.

Before long they came in sight of Heorot. The shining of the place astonished them. It stood like a tower of solid gold. Beyond it, shrouded in mist even on a day like this, lay the fen.

To Beowulf—perhaps because of his short sight—hall Heorot appeared even brighter than it was, and the badlands darker. He stood on a grassy mound gazing down at the gold and the black for a long while, until his men began to grow restless and the coastguard’s horse flared its nostrils wide, impatient to be back within smelling distance of the sea.

Then Beowulf thanked the coastguard for showing them the way, and led his men along the winding stone road to Heorot. The coastguard watched them go, thinking how brave and doomed they looked, until they were so far away that he could no longer hear the clinking of their armor. He saw that Beowulf had left his sword stuck in the top of the mound. It shone in the sunlight like a cross.

Hrothgar’s hair, once red as fire, had turned white with worry about Grendel. His heart was sickened by slaughter. So many men had waited in hall Heorot to face the fiend, and been eaten for their courage, that the king had come to think he was being punished for his pride in building such a magnificence. He rested his jutting jaw on his hand, and welcomed Beowulf without much confidence.

“I knew your father,” he said, after they had exchanged salutes. “He was a tall, strong man, with an eye like a hawk’s.”

Beowulf blinked and smiled. “Great Hrothgar,” he said politely, “I am not tall, as you see, and my enemies liken my eyes to the bat’s. But the bat knows well enough where he is going in the night, and so do I.”

Hrothgar shook his head slowly, as though it buzzed with sorrow. “I suppose you have
come to fight Grendel,” he muttered. “Please go home again. There’s nothing anyone can do.”

Beowulf sat down on the steps by the king’s throne. His manner was relaxed and easy. Hrothgar could not help liking this plain young man—there was such an air of simplicity about him. He shuddered and touched the scars on his own face—livid marks made by Grendel’s claws—as he thought what the monster would do to that simplicity.

Beowulf was eating an apple. He bit into it with cheerful determination. The tips of his fingers were square. Hrothgar noticed how strong his wrists were.

Beowulf said: “These apples are good. Do you want one?”

“Where do they grow?”

“In the valley on the other side of the hill. I had my men pick a sackful as we marched past.” Beowulf nodded to one of his followers. The man chose an apple from a huge bag he had been carrying on his back, and brought it to the king. Hrothgar balanced it on the palm of his hand and considered it doubtfully.

“That grove is witch-work,” he said, looking at Beowulf as though he expected him to be turned into a pig any minute.

Unferth, slouched over a cup, rich mead sticky in his whiskers, grinned agreement. “An old witch spat her teeth out there,” he muttered. “They were bad teeth—green and red and rotting. They grew into apple trees. Nobody in his right mind would eat fruit like that.”

Beowulf took a big bite and finished his apple, pips, core, and all.

“You feel well?” asked the king.

“Never better.”

“But you heard what Unferth said?”

“I heard.”

Unferth scowled, and poked at his boil. “Only someone wicked could eat witch’s apples and come to no harm,” he insinuated darkly.

Beowulf laughed. Hrothgar thought that it was a long time since he had heard such a free and easy sound in hall Heorot.

“I don’t like being laughed at,” whined Unferth, drawing his dagger.

Beowulf swiftly handed him an apple. “I don’t peel them, myself,” he said. “Things seem to lose something with their skins off, don’t you think? But every man to his own taste.”

Unferth skewered the apple with his blade. Hrothgar and Queen Wealhtheow were smiling
at his discomfiture. Some of the Geats guffawed, delighted by their leader’s quick wit. The Danes laughed too. Unferth was unpopular, and they liked the way this mild-tempered stranger had put him in his place. Unferth could not stand it. He sliced the apple in two and kicked the pieces away. “I say again what I said before,” he hissed. “The apples are bad, and only a bad—”

“The apples are good,” broke in Beowulf, his voice calm but firm. “Listen, Unferth, and I will tell you something. You think that bad brings forth bad only, and that the good man should hold apart from it. I suggest that things aren’t so simple, so black and white. Even the wickedest person can do good for someone. The truly good man finds good where he can.”

“Oh, so you’re truly good, are you?” sneered Unferth.

“Not at all,” said Beowulf. “Bad teeth don’t belong only to witches. I have some myself.” He opened his mouth and pointed.

Unferth sniggered. “Riddled with rot,” he said. “And your teeth have obviously infected your tongue. Riddles and rot, that’s what your talk is!”

Queen Wealhtheow leaned forward. Her fair hair trembled with gold in the sunlight
that streamed through the hall from a high window. “I don’t think the stranger talks in riddles,” she said. “What he says and does makes perfect sense to me.”

“Explain,” said the king patiently, still rolling his apple in his hands.

“Well,” said Wealhtheow, “I think that Beowulf is trying to show us that in order to overcome evil, we have to admit to a little bit of it in ourselves. He can eat the witch’s apple and come to no harm, because he has sufficient strength of character to find the good in it.”

“Strength?” scoffed Unferth. “Bat’s eyes and rat’s teeth!”

“Quite so,” said Wealhtheow. “He admits to his weaknesses and in the admitting they become strengths. This is no usual kind of hero.”

Hrothgar nodded thoughtfully. “I’m inclined to agree with you, my love, although reasoning things out isn’t my best point, and I can’t pretend to have understood all this apple business as readily as you have.”

“Never mind understanding,” the queen said, her blue eyes patient. “Just eat your own apple. I’m sure it’s tasty.”

Hrothgar crossed himself. And took a bite. Everyone watched him expectantly. He took
another bite. He chewed. He swallowed. He could not help thinking of the witch, but neither could he help admitting that the apple was delicious. “It’s fine and ripe,” he said at last, smacking his lips. “Neither too sour nor too sweet.”

Beowulf beamed. He said, “Now, about Grendel—”

“Wait a bit,” snapped Unferth. “What about Breca?”

“Breca?” said Hrothgar. “Who’s Breca?”

Unferth’s thin lips were wry and ugly with malice. “Breca,” he said slowly, savoring each nasty word, “was the name of a friend of our fine hero here. I just remembered the story while you and the queen were busy heaping incomprehensible praises on him. Not a pretty story, is it, Beowulf? You tried to drown your friend because he was a better swimmer than you!”

After Unferth’s outburst some of the Geats wanted to throttle him, they were so furious at this insult to their leader. But Beowulf walked among them coolly, advising restraint. Hrothgar shifted about uneasily on his throne, glaring at Unferth, wanting to apologize to Beowulf for his henchman’s uncouth behavior. But Queen Wealhtheow
caught at his sleeve and whispered to him to wait and see what Beowulf had to say. “It’s a kind of test,” she murmured behind her hand. “So far everything has gone the stranger’s way. Let’s watch how he deals with this.”

Beowulf came and stood before them. His face was pale. His eyes had a faraway look. He spoke with a straightforward seriousness that made everyone fall silent. His voice echoed compellingly in the hushed hall.

“Mighty Hrothgar, wise Wealhtheow,” Beowulf said, “the truth is not as your man Unferth has told it. What happened was this. When I was a boy, I had a friend called Breca. We both loved swimming. We used to go out together and wrestle with the waves, whatever the weather. One day we made a dare with each other, as boys will. The dare was that each of us was to enter the sea, sword in hand, and keep swimming until one gave up.” Beowulf smiled, as though all this struck him as great foolishness now. “If you ask me why we took swords,” he went on, “I can only say that we had some conceited idea of fighting whales with them. Anyway, we were both good swimmers, and we went on and on, for five days and five nights, neither willing to admit defeat, until a terrible storm drove us apart. I’ll never forget that moment.
The sky grew dark at noon, and the wind lashed the sea until it boiled. The creatures of the deep were driven mad by the storm. Something caught hold of me—to this day, I’m not sure whether it was the furious sea-swell or some monster from the ocean-bed—and dragged me toward the rocks at the foot of cliffs, which suddenly loomed up from nowhere. I clung on hard. I turned to face the roaring waves. And then monsters did indeed appear. Nine of them, one after another, sliding slick with jaws agape through the heaving sea. And I swung my sword about my head and fought them off. I killed them. Nine sea-monsters. I killed them. The wind stopped. The waves dropped. I was on Lapland shore, exhausted, covered in seaweed, and I slept. As for Breca, he was not drowned. The current swept him to Norway. He was a better swimmer than I.”

The Geats burst out cheering as Beowulf finished. They had heard the story before, of course, but never so plainly from Beowulf’s lips. He was not given to boasting, and had offered his account simply as an answer to Unferth’s lie.

King Hrothgar was stirred by the telling of such brave deeds. He was a warrior at heart, and here was something he could easily understand
and appreciate. He commanded his servants to prepare a banquet fit for a hero. The feasting and drinking went on for hours. Only Unferth did not join in. He sat in a corner, picking moodily at his boil, glaring at the bright assembled company.

Long shadows crept into hall Heorot. Night was coming on. Some of the Danes grew restless and apprehensive. They did not like to show their fear of Grendel, but their hands quivered where they held the drinking-horns, and their eyes kept returning to the door.

Hrothgar consulted with Wealhtheow. Then he said to Beowulf: “You are determined to face Grendel, come what may?”

“I am,” said Beowulf quietly.

“What is your plan?”

“The best plan,” said Beowulf. “No plan.”

Hrothgar shook his head. “You are the bravest man I have ever met,” he said, standing up to salute his guest. “If anyone can kill Grendel, it is you.” He suddenly noticed something about Beowulf that had escaped his attention before. “Where is your sword?” he asked.

Beowulf shrugged. “My sword? Oh, I left it in the sun somewhere. I need no sword.”

“No sword! But how—?”

“Does Grendel use a sword?” demanded Beowulf.