The tower of Beowulf by Godwin Parke

Author:Godwin, Parke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Beowulf, Epic poetry, English (Old), Northmen, Monsters
Publisher: New York : W. Morrow
Published: 1995-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

of the battle and more after that, relishing the gore. What more could he tell? Ask of the others, boy. "What, then?"

"You do not hear? My father calls you."

Beowulf pushed himself away from the bench to face the high table where Hrothgar was on his feet, one hand raised. Wulfgar advanced down the noisy hall, pounding his staff for silence, while Weltheow waited before the dais holding a rich cloth in her hands.

"Silence for Hrothgar, protector of the Spear-Danes!"

The king's voice carried, reedy with age but still commanding. "Thanes, let us render what is due. For Hondshew who died in our aid, full measure of gold weight will go to Helsingborg for his family."

All the Geats stood up in honor of their friend's passing. Unferth himself, quiet and sober this evening, deposited the two heavy bags at Beowulf's feet with a respectful nod. Beowulf gave the gold into Ulf's charge.

"I thank my lord for Hondshew's kin. He wanted—"

Wanted so much, that man. Aye, Hondshew would with all that zest for life dancing in his eyes. To watch with Ina as their children grew and later bear the joyful weight of them clambering over him to hear Hondshew tell of his adventuring and perhaps exaggerate a little as if any enlargement were needed. Now the gold would go to his wife and the small, wizened widow who bore him. Geatish tongues stumbled over her Pictish name, which sounded like Itharne, and so she was known. Itharne, the woman with blue-black hair and leathery olive skin, who could never abide the sound of a Geatish harp but taught Hondshew instead songs from her Caledonian home: of Artos and Gwynhwyfar, Dorelei of the Faerie folk and her love for Padrec Raven, and how a man might gamble and lose all for a woman, which had once seemed trivial and unrealistic to Beowulf, though deep-dyed in the man he called friend. What could he say now for Hondshew who had far more music in him?

"He wanted to do his best," he finished shortly. "May we make a pyre for him this afternoon?"

Wulfgar assured him as to that. "The logs are laid and the body prepared. We will honor him in the morning."

"Now let us honor the living." Weltheow unfolded the rich cloth she held: a golden banner with fine embroidery inset with jewels in the outline of a boar. At the entrance of the hall where the ruined doors

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