[{21b}] Meeting place.
[{22a}] Kenning for “sword.” Hrunting is bewitched, laid under a spell of uselessness, along with all other swords.
[{22b}] This brown of swords, evidently meaning burnished, bright, continues to be a favorite adjective in the popular ballads.
[{23a}] After the killing of the monster and Grendel’s decapitation.
[{23b}] Hrothgar.
[{23c}] The blade slowly dissolves in blood-stained drops like icicles.
[{23d}] Spear.
[{24a}] That is, “whoever has as wide authority as I have and can remember so far back so many instances of heroism, may well say, as I say, that no better hero ever lived than Beowulf.”
[{25a}] That is, he is now undefended by conscience from the temptations (shafts) of the devil.
[{25b}] Kenning for the sun. -- This is a strange role for the raven. He is the warrior’s bird of battle, exults in slaughter and carnage; his joy here is a compliment to the sunrise.