There was much going on that day in Heorot. Flocks of children were playing about the pretty paths. Mothers and aunts and older sisters sat spinning in the open doorways. Beyond the wide meadow young men and boys were leading or riding spirited horses up and down to exercise them.
And all—men, women, and children alike—were talking about Beowulf, who had come to kill the monster Grendel and free the people of Heorot.
Beowulf had not much more than entered the Hall when the scôp, or singer, as little Widsith's master was called, entered too. In those days singers were welcome everywhere. They saw Beowulf stride mightily across the many-colored floor of Heorot and go up to the old King. And they heard his voice, which sounded like the rumble of a heavy sea on their rock-bound coast.
"Hrothgar!" he said to the old King, "across the sea's way have I come to help thee."
"Of thee, Beowulf, have we need," replied the old King in tears, "for Heorot has suffered much from the monster."
"I will deliver thee, Hrothgar," said Beowulf, in his great voice; "thee and all who dwell in Heorot."
"Steep and stony are the sea cliffs, joyless our woods and wolf-haunted, robbed is our Heorot, for to Grendel can no man do aught. He breaks the bones of my people. And those of my people he cannot eat in Heorot he drags away on to the moor and devours alive."
And the old, bald-headed King, seated on his high seat in the Hall between his pretty daughter and his tired Queen, sighed as he thought of the approaching night. Yet, now that Beowulf had come, he hoped.
Together they gathered about the banquet. Beowulf sat among the sons of the old King. The walls inside were as bright as the roof, and gold-gilded, and the great fires from which smoke poured out through openings in the roof were cheerful and warm.