ll. 90-99. There is a suspicious similarity between this passage and the lines attributed by Bede to Cædmon:
Nû wê sculan herian heofonrices Weard, etc.
—Sw., p. 47.
ll. 90-98 are probably the interpolation of a Christian scribe.
ll. 92-97. "The first of these Christian elements [in Beówulf] is the sense of a fairer, softer world than that in which the Northern warriors lived.... Another Christian passage ([ll. 107], [1262]) derives all the demons, eotens, elves, and dreadful sea-beasts from the race of Cain. The folly of sacrificing to the heathen gods is spoken of ([l. 175]).... The other point is the belief in immortality ([ll. 1202], [1761])."—Br. 71.
l. 100. Cf. [l. 2211], where the third dragon of the poem is introduced in the same words. Beowulf is the forerunner of that other national dragon-slayer, St. George.
l. 100. onginnan in Beówulf is treated like verbs of motion and modal auxiliaries, and takes the object inf. without tô; cf. ll. [872], [1606], [1984], [244]. Cf. gan (= did) in Mid. Eng.: gan espye (Chaucer, Knightes Tale, l. 254, ed. Morris).
l. 101. B. and H.-So. read, feónd on healle; cf. l. [142].—Beit. xii.
ll. 101-151. "Grimm connects [Grendel] with the Anglo-Saxon grindel (a bolt or bar).... It carries with it the notion of the bolts and bars of hell, and hence a fiend. ... Ettmüller was the first ... to connect the name with grindan, to grind, to crush to pieces, to utterly destroy. Grendel is then the tearer, the destroyer."—Br., p. 83.
l. 102. gäst = stranger (Ha.); cf. [ll. 1139], [1442], [2313], etc.