Fiercely then did the battle rage between hero and dragon.  But Beowulf’s sword failed him in his need, and it was like to go ill with him.  Then, when his thanes who watched saw that, fear fell upon them, and they fled.  One only, Wiglaf was his name, would not forsake his liege lord.  Seizing his shield and drawing his sword, he cried, “Come, let us go to him, let us help our chieftain, although the grim terror of fire be hot.”

But none would follow him, so alone he went:  “through the fatal smoke he bare his war helmet to the assistance of his lord.”

Fierce was the fight and long.  But at length the dragon lay dead.  Beowulf had conquered, but in conquering he had received his death wound.  And there, by the wild seashore, he died.  And there a sorrowing people buried him.

“For him, then did the people of the Geats prepare upon the earth a funeral pile, strong, hung round with helmets, with war boards and bright byrnies as he had requested.  Weeping, the heroes laid down in the midst their dear lord.

“Then began the warriors to awake upon the hill the mightiest of bale-fires.  The wood smoke rose aloft, dark from the foe of wood.  Noisily it went mingled with weeping. . . .

“The people of the Westerns wrought then a mound over the sea:  it was high and broad, easy to behold by the sailors over the waves, and during ten days they built up the beacon of the war-renowned, the mightiest of fires. . . .  Then round the mound rode a troupe of beasts of war, of nobles, twelve in all.  They would speak about their King, they would call him to mind.  They praised his valor, and his deeds of bravery they judged with praise, even as it is fitting that a man should extol his friendly lord, should love him in his soul, when he must depart from the body to become of naught.

“Thus the people of the Geats, his hearth comrades, mourned their dear lord.  They said that he was of the kings of the world, the mildest and gentlest of men, the most gracious to his people, and the most jealous of glory.”

BOOKS TO READ

Stories of Beowulf, by H. E. Marshall.  Beowulf, translated by W. Huyshe.

Chapter XII THE FATHER OF ENGLISH SONG

Although there are lines of Beowulf which seem to show that the writer of the poem was a Christian, they must have been added by some one who copied or retold the story long after the Saxons had come to Britain, for the poet who first told the tale must have been a heathen, as all the Saxons were.

The Britons were Christian, for they had learned the story of Christ from the Romans.  But when the Saxons conquered the land they robbed and ruined the churches, the Christian priests were slain or driven forth, and once more the land became heathen.

Then, after many years had passed, the story of Christ was again brought to England.  This time it came from Ireland.  It was brought from there by St. Columba, who built a church and founded a monastery on the island of Iona.  And from there his eager, wandering priests carried the story far and wide, northward to the fortress of the Pictish kings, and southward to the wild Saxons who dwelt amid the hills and uplands of Northumbria.