1274 "Broken and bowed,
outcast from all sweetness, the enemy of mankind
made for his death-den." His life-force drained;
his wounds wept blood, and where it fell
the ground scorched. The scourge screamed
with such force that a gale sprang from his gullet.
Upon hearing the howl, a hag-thing hurried
to the declining hall-ruiner. It harrowed her
to see her son suffer. She tried to soothe his battle-sores,
but as a lion which has lost its paw, he acted with hostility.
The killer of man collapsed, crumpling into his death-pose.
The quagmire trembled, and the ground tore apart.
From the chasm came the cries of the damned,
for Hell had opened its conflagrating maw to claim his spirit.
The Devil, the bringer of all evil and darkness,
emerged from the flames. He flew to the defeated form
and hacked away Grendel's soul from its corporeal house.
Unable to bear this sight, the one who birthed the brute
assailed God's adversary. Her attempt was futile,
for only the Lord can make battle with Lucifer
and achieve victory. That vile spreader of vice
clutched his soul-prize, and his form smoked and singed
until a fire-curtain obscured his gruesome features.
When the fumes had cleared, foe of the Almighty
had vanished. The terra-rift closed, leaving no traces.
And so Grendel was dead.
Growls and groans
of the sorrowful she-beast came from the slough
every evening after that. The eerie laments engulfed
the region in the despair; before the reeking marsh
had been a carefree party-country in comparison.
The mere itself mourned. It was not a merry place.
The gorgon-wretch, realizing the need for retaliation, made
a mission to recover the stolen arm. "But now his mother
had sallied forth on a savage journey,
grief-racked and ravenous, desperate for revenge."