away, he saw the dead body of
Grendel. The hero cut off the head of the monster and hastened away to
Hrothgar's court. After receiving much praise and many presents,
Beowulf and his warriors sailed to their own land, where he ruled as
king for fifty years.

He engaged in his third and hardest conflict when he was old. A
firedrake, angered at the loss of a part of a treasure, which he had
for three hundred years been guarding in a cavern, laid waste the land
in the hero's kingdom. Although Beowulf knew that this dragon breathed
flames of fire and that mortal man could not long withstand such
weapons, he sought the cavern which sheltered the destroyer and fought
the most terrible battle of his life. He killed the dragon, but
received mortal hurt from the enveloping flames. The old hero had
finally fallen; but he had through life fought a good fight, and he
could say as the twilight passed into the dark:--

"I have ruled the people fifty years; no folk-king was there of them
that dwelt about me durst touch me with his sword or cow me through
terror. I bided at home the hours of destiny, guarded well mine own,
sought not feuds with guile, swore not many an oath unjustly."[13]

The poem closes with this fitting epitaph for the hero:--

"Quoth they that he was a world-king forsooth,
The mildest of all men, unto men kindest,
To his folk the most gentlest, most yearning of fame."[14]

Wherein Beowulf is Typical of the Anglo-Saxon Race.--_Beowulf_ is by
far the most important Anglo-Saxon poem, because it presents in the
rough the persistent characteristics of the race. This epic shows the
ideals of our ancestors, what they held most dear, the way they lived
and died.

I. We note the love of liberty and law, the readiness to fight any
dragon that threatened these. The English _Magna Charta_ and _Petition
of Right_ and the American _Declaration of Independence_ are an
extension of the application of the same principles embodied in
_Beowulf_. The old-time spirit of war still prevails in all branches
of the race; but the contest is to-day directed against dragons of a
different type from Grendel,--against myriad forms of industrial and
social injustice and against those forces which have been securing
special privileges for some and denying equal opportunity for all.

II. _Beowulf_ is a recognition in general of the great moral forces of
the universe. The poem upholds the ideals of personal manliness,
bravery