Beowulf

Kenning for king or chieftain of a comitatus: he breaks off gold from the spiral rings -- often worn on the arm -- and so rewards his followers. {1a} That is, “The Hart,” or “Stag,” so called from decorations in the gables that resembled the antlers of a deer. This hall has been carefully described in a pamphlet by Heyne. The building was rectangular, with opposite doors -- mainly west and east -- and a hearth in the middle of th single room. A row of pillars down each side, at some distance from the walls, made a space which was raised a little above the main floor, and was furnished with two rows of seats. On one side, usually south, was the high-seat midway between the doors. Opposite this, on the other raised space, was another seat of honor. At the banquet soon to be described, Hrothgar sat in the south or chief high-seat, and Beowulf opposite to him. The scene for a flying (see below, v.499) was thus very effectively set. Planks on trestles -- the “board” of later English literature -- formed the tables just in front of the long rows of seats, and were taken away after banquets, when the retainers were ready to stretch themselves out for sleep on the benches. {1b} Fire was the usual end of these halls. See v. 781 below. One thinks of the splendid scene at the end of the Nibelungen, of the Nialssaga, of Saxo’s story of Amlethus, and many a less famous instance. {1c} It is to be supposed that all hearers of this poem knew how Hrothgar’s hall was burnt, -- perhaps in the unsuccessful attack made on him by his son-in-law Ingeld. {1d} A skilled minstrel. The Danes are heathens, as one is told presently; but this lay of beginnings is taken from Genesis. {1e} A disturber of the border, one who sallies from his haunt in the fen and roams over the country near by. This probably pagan nuisance is now furnished with biblical credentials as a fiend or devil in good standing, so that all Christian Englishmen might read about him. “Grendel” may mean one who grinds and crushes. {1f} Cain’s. {1g} Giants. {2a} The smaller buildings within the main enclosure but separate from the hall. {2b} Grendel. {2c} “Sorcerers-of-hell.” {2d} Hrothgar, who is the “Scyldings’-friend” of 170. {2e} That is, in formal or…