PROLOGUE: Early History of the Danes
Listen:
You have heard of the Danish Kings in the old days and how they were great warriors. Shield, the son of Sheaf, took many an enemy’s chair and terrified many a warrior after he was found an orphan. He prospered under the sky until people everywhere listened when he spoke.
He was a good king! Shield had a son, a child for his yard, sent by God to comfort the people and keep them from fear. Grain was his name, and he was famous throughout the North. Young princes should do as he did – give out treasures while they’re still young so that when they’re old, people will support them in time of war. A man prospers by good deeds in any nation. Shield died at his fated hour and went to God still strong.
His people carried him to the sea, which was his last request. In the harbor stood a well-built ship, icy but ready for the sea. They laid Shield there, propped him against the mast surrounded by gold and treasure from distant lands. I’ve never heard of a more beautiful ship, filled with shields, swords, and coats of mail – gifts to him for his long trip. No doubt he had a little more than he did as a child when he was sent out, a naked orphan in an empty boat.
Now he had a golden banner high over his head, sadly given to the sea by rich people. The wisest alive can’t tell where a death ship goes. Grain ruled the Danes a long time after his father’s death, and the great Healfdene was born to him, fierce in battle, who ruled until he was old. Healfdene had four children – Heorogar, Hrothgar, Halga the Good, and a daughter who married Onela, King of the Swedes.
Hrothgar becomes king of the Danes. After becoming king, he won many battles. His friends and family willingly obeyed him, and his childhood friends became famous soldiers. So, Hrothgar decided to build a mead-hall, the greatest the world had ever seen or imagined. There, he would share all that God gave him, except for public lands and men’s lives, with young and old alike. Orders went out far and wide, and tribes throughout the world set to work on building it. The world’s greatest mead-hall was built, and that great man called the building Herot,” the hart.
After it was built, Hrothgar did what he said he would: hand out gold and treasure at huge feasts. That hall was high-towered, tall and wide-gabled. The poet told how the world came to be, how God made the earth and the water surrounding, how He set the sun and the moon as lights for people and adorned the earth with limbs and leaves for everyone. Hrothgar’s people lived in joy, happy until that wanderer of the wasteland, Grendel the demon, possessor of the moors, began his crimes. He was of a race of monsters exiled from mankind by God. He was of the race of Cain, that man punished for murdering his brother. From that family comes all evil beings–monsters, elves, zombies. Also, the giants who fought with God and got repaid with the flood. Words/Pages: 479/24
