"Well hast thou treated us.
If on this earth I can do more to win thy love,
O prince of warriors, than I have wrought as yet,
Here stand I ready now weapons to wield for thee.
If I shall ever hear o'er the encircling flood
That any neighbouring foes threaten thy nation's fall,
As Grendel grim before, swift will I bring to thee
Thousands of noble thanes, heroes to help thee."

Then, in their ship, that the Warden of the Coast once had challenged,
Beowulf and his warriors set sail for their own dear land.

Gaily the vessel danced over the waves, heavy though it was with
treasure, nobly gained. And when Beowulf had come in safety to his
homeland and had told his kinsman the tale of the slaying of the
Grendel and of the Wolf-Woman, he gave the finest of his steeds to the
King, and to the Queen the jewelled collar, Brisingamen, that the
Queen of the Goths had bestowed on him. And the heart of his uncle was
glad and proud indeed, and there was much royal banqueting in the
hero's honour. Of him, too, the scalds made up songs, and there was no
hero in all that northern land whose fame was as great as was the fame
of Beowulf.

"The Must Be often helps an undoomed man when he is brave" was the
precept on which he ruled his life, and he never failed the King whose
chief champion and warrior he was. When, in an expedition against the
Frieslanders, King Hygelac fell a victim to the cunning of his foes,
the sword of Beowulf fought nobly for him to the end, and the hero was
a grievously wounded man when he brought back to Gothland the body of
the dead King. The Goths would fain have made him their King, in
Hygelac's stead, but Beowulf was too loyal a soul to supplant his
uncle's own son. On his shield he laid the infant prince, Hardred, and
held him up for the people to see. And when he had proclaimed the
child King and vowed to serve him faithfully all the days of his life,
there was no man there who did not loyally echo the promise of their
hero, Beowulf.

When Hardred, a grown man, was treacherously slain by a son of Othere,
he who discovered the North Cape, Beowulf once again was chosen King,
and for forty years he reigned wisely and well. The fame of his arms
kept war away from the land, and his wisdom as a statesman brought
great prosperity and happiness to his people. He had never known fear,
and so for him there was nothing to dread when the wea