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Secret The land he inhabits; dark, wolf-haunted ways Of the windy hillside, by the treacherous tarn; Or where, covered up in its mist, the hill stream Downward flows." _Beowulf_ (Keary's tr.).
As Hrothgar was now too old to wield a sword with his former skill, his first impulse was, of course, to offer a princely reward to any man brave enough to free the country of this terrible scourge.