Page:Gummere (1909) The Oldest English Epic.djvu/105

Rh hard of edge: with Hrunting I seek doom of glory, or Death shall take me.”

After these words the Weder-Geat lord boldly hastened, biding never answer at all: and ocean floods closed o’er the hero. Long while of the day fled ere he felt the floor of the sea. Soon found the fiend who the flood-domain sword-hungry held these hundred winters, greedy and grim, that some guest from above, some man, was raiding her monster-realm. She grasped out for him with grisly claws, and the warrior seized; yet scathed she not his body hale; the breastplate hindered, as she strove to shatter the sark of war, the linkéd harness, with loathsome hand. Then bore this brine-wolf, when bottom she touched, the lord of rings to the lair she haunted, whiles vainly he strove, though his valor held, weapon to wield against wondrous monsters that sore beset him; sea-beasts many tried with fierce tusks to tear his mail, and swarmed on the stranger. But soon he marked he was now in some hall, he knew not which, where water never could work him harm, nor through the roof could reach him ever fangs of the flood. Firelight he saw, beams of a blaze that brightly shone.