Page:Gummere (1909) The Oldest English Epic.djvu/98

82 hewed the helm-boars: hero famed should be every earl as Æschere was! But here in Heorot a hand hath slain him of wandering death-sprite. I wot not whither, proud of the prey, her path she took, fain of her fill. The feud she avenged that yesternight, unyieldingly, Grendel in grimmest grasp thou killedst,— seeing how long these liegemen mine he ruined and ravaged. Reft of life, in arms he fell. Now another comes, keen and cruel, her kin to avenge, faring far in feud of blood: so that many a thane shall think, who e’er sorrows in soul for that sharer of rings, this is hardest of heart-bales. The hand lies low that once was willing each wish to please. Land-dwellers here and liegemen mine, who house by those parts, I have heard relate that such a pair they have sometimes seen, march-stalkers mighty the moorland haunting, wandering spirits: one of them seemed, so far as my folk could fairly judge, of womankind; and one, accursed, in man’s guise trod the misery-track