[Sidenote:  Beowulf honored by the queen.] While the men were feasting, listening to the lays of the scalds, and carrying the usual toasts, Wealtheow, Hrothgar’s beautiful wife, the Queen of Denmark, appeared.  She pledged Beowulf in a cup of wine, which he gallantly drained after she had touched it to her lips.  Then she bestowed upon him a costly necklace (the famous Brisinga-men, according to some authorities)[1] and a ring of the finest gold. [Footnote 1:  See Guerber’s Myths of Northern Lands, p. 127.]

“‘Wear these,’ she cried, ’since thou hast in the fight
So borne thyself, that wide as ocean rolls
Round our wind-beaten cliffs his brimming waves,
All gallant souls shall speak thy eulogy.’”

          
                                                                Beowulf (Conybeare’s tr.).

When the banquet was ended, Hrothgar escorted his guests to more pleasant sleeping apartments than they had occupied the night before, leaving his own men to guard the hall, where Grendel would never again appear.  The warriors, fearing no danger, slept in peace; but in the dead of night the mother of the giant, as grewsome and uncanny a monster as he, glided into the hall, secured the bloody trophy still hanging from the ceiling, and carried it away, together with Aeschere (Askher), the king’s bosom friend.

When Hrothgar learned this new loss at early dawn he was overcome with grief; and when Beowulf, attracted by the sound of weeping, appeared at his side, he mournfully told him of his irretrievable loss.

     “’Ask not after happiness;
     Sorrow is renewed
     To the Danes’ people. 
     Aeschere is dead,
     Yrmenlaf’s
     Elder brother,
     The partaker of my secrets
     And my counselor,
     Who stood at my elbow
     When we in battle
     Our mail hoods defended,
     When troops rushed together
     And boar crests crashed.’”
                   Beowulf (Metcalfe’s tr.).

[Sidenote:  Beowulf and Grendel’s mother.] The young hero immediately volunteered to finish his work and avenge Aeschere by seeking and attacking Grendel’s mother in her own retreat; but as he knew the perils of this expedition, Beowulf first gave explicit directions for the disposal of his personal property in case he never returned.  Then, escorted by the Danes and Geates, he followed the bloody track until he came to a cliff overhanging the waters of the mountain pool.  There the bloody traces ceased, but Aeschere’s gory head was placed aloft as a trophy.

“Now paused they sudden where the pine grove clad
The hoar rock’s brow, a dark and joyless shade. 
Troublous and blood-stain’d roll’d the stream below. 
Sorrow and dread were on the Scylding’s host,
In each man’s breast deep working; for they saw
On that rude cliff young Aeschere’s mangled head.”

          
                                                            Beowulf (Conybeare’s tr.).