The third passage presents us with an incidental description of the terrors of a hand-to-hand fight between armed champions, and it pictures a trial of strength between the tough steel of the flashing sword and the hard iron of the boar on the helmet:
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þonne heoru bunden
When the hafted halberd
hamere geþuren,
hammer-toughened,
sweord swâte fâh,
the sword battle-spotted,
swîn ofer helme