Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/24

 dinner the mintrel again took up the harp, and ang eme of the favourite hitories of their tribe. "The lay was ung, the ong of the gleeman, the joke roe again, the noie from the benches grew loud, cupbearers gave the wine from wondrous veels." Then the queen, "under a golden crown," again erved the cup to Hrothgar and Beowulf. She afterwards went as before to her eat, and " there was the cothet of feats, the men drank wine," until bed-time arrived a econd time. While their leader appears to have been accommodated with a chamber, Beowulf's men again occupied the hall. " They bared the benchplanks; it was pread all over with beds and bolters; at their heads they et their war-rims, the bright hield-wood; there, on the bench, might eaily be een, above the warrior, his helmet lofty in war, the ringed mail-hiirt, and the olid hield; it was their cutom ever to be ready for war, both in houe and in field."

Grendel had a mother (it was the primitive form of the legend of the devil and his dam), and this econd night he came unexpectedly to avenge her on, and lew one of Hrothgar's favourite counellors and nobles, who mut therefore have alo lept in the hall. Beowulf and his warriors next day went in earch of this new marauder, and ucceeded in detroying her, after which exploit they returned to their own home laden with rich preents.

Thee ketches of early manners, light as they may be, are invaluable to us, in the abence of all other documentary record during everal ages, until after the Anglo-Saxons had been converted to Chritianity. During this long period we have, however, one ource of invaluable information, though of a retricted kind—the barrows or graves of our primeval fore-fathers, which contain almot every decription of article that they ued when alive. In that olitary document, the poem of Beowulf, we are told of the arms which the Saxons ued, of the drees in which they were clad; of the rings, and bracelets, and ornaments, of which they were proud; of the "olid cup, the valuable drinking-vevel, "from which they quaffed the mead, or the vaes from which they poured it; but we can obtain no notions of the form or character of thee articles. From the graves, on the contrary, we obtain a perfect knowledge of the form