he slays the mother monster, whose poisonous blood afterwards melts
the "damasked blade". Like Finn, he subsequently returns with the head
of one of the monsters.

An interesting point about this story is that it does not appear in
any form in the North German cycle of Romance. Indeed, the poet who
included in his epic the fiery dragon story, which links the hero
Beowulf with Sigurd and Siegfried, appears to be doubtful about the
mother monster's greatness, as if dealing with unfamiliar material,
for he says: "The terror (caused by Grendel's mother) was less by just
so much as woman's strength, woman's war terror, is (measured) by
fighting men".[177] Yet, in the narrative which follows the Amazon is
proved to be the stronger monster of the two. Traces of the mother
monster survive in English folklore, especially in the traditions
about the mythical "Long Meg of Westminster", referred to by Ben
Jonson in his masque of the "Fortunate Isles":

Westminster Meg,
With her long leg,
As long as a crane;
And feet like a plane,
With a pair of heels
As broad as two wheels.

Meg has various graves. One is supposed to be marked by a huge stone
in the south side of the cloisters of Westminster Abbey; it probably
marks the trench in which some plague victims--regarded, perhaps, as
victims of Meg--were interred. Meg was also reputed to have been
petrified, like certain Greek and Irish giants and giantesses. At
Little Salkeld, near Penrith, a stone circle is referred to as "Long
Meg and her Daughters". Like "Long Tom", the famous giant, "Mons Meg"
gave her name to big guns in early times, all hags and giants having
been famous in floating folk tales as throwers of granite boulders,
balls of hard clay, quoits, and other gigantic missiles.

The stories about Grendel's mother and Long Meg are similar to those
still repeated in the Scottish Highlands. These contrast sharply with
characteristic Germanic legends, in which the giant is greater than
the giantess, and the dragon is a male, like Fafner, who is slain by
Sigurd, and Regin whom Siegfried overcomes. It is probable, therefore,
that the British stories of female monsters who were more powerful
than their husbands and sons, are of Neolithic and Iberian
origin--immemorial relics of the intellectual life of the western
branch of the Mediterranean race.

In Egypt the dragon survives in the highly developed mythology of the
sun cult of Heliopolis, and, as s