Four of them had to carry with labor

The head of Grendel to the high towering gold-hall

Upstuck on the spear, till fourteen most-valiant

And battle-brave Geatmen came there going

Straight to the palace : the prince of the people

Measured the mead-ways, their mood-brave companion,

The atheling of earlmen entered the building,

Deed-valiant man, adorned with distinction.
Doughty shield-warrior, to address King Hrothgar:

Then hung by the hair, the head of Grendel

Was borne to the building, where beer-thanes were drinking,

Loth before earlmen and eke 'fore the lady:

The warriors beheld then a wonderful sight.
J. L. Hall's Translation, Parts XXI.-XXIV.
THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.
THE Nibelungen Lied, or Song of the Nibelungen, was
written about the beginning of the thirteenth century,
though the events it chronicles belong to the sixth or seventh
century. The manuscript poem was discovered about the
middle of the eighteenth century.
Lachmann asserts that the Nibelungen Lied consists of
twenty songs of various dates and authorship ; other scholars,
while agreeing that it is the work of a single author, ascribe
it variously to Conrad von Kurenburger, Wolfram von Esch-
enbach, Heinrich von Ofterdingen, and Walther von der
Vogelweide.
Whoever was its author, he was only a compiler of legends
that were the property of the people for centuries, and are
found in many other of the popular German epics of the
Middle Ages.
