In honor of the victory, Hrothgar gave to Beowulf many presents and a
banquet in Heorot. After the feast, the warriors slept in the hall,
but Beowulf went to the palace. He had been gone but a short time,
when in rushed Grendel's mother, to avenge the death of her son. She
seized a warrior, the king's dearest friend, and carried him away. In
the morning, the king said to Beowulf:--

"My trusty friend AEschere is dead... The cruel hag has wreaked
on him her vengeance. The country folk said there were two of them,
one the semblance of a woman; the other the specter of a man. Their
haunt is in the remote land, in the crags of the wolf, the
wind-beaten cliffs, and untrodden bogs, where the dismal stream
plunges into the drear abyss of an awful lake, overhung with a dark
and grizzly wood rooted down to the water's edge, where a lurid
flame plays nightly on the surface of the flood--and there lives not
the man who knows its depth! So dreadful is the place that the
hunted stag, hard driven by the hounds, will rather die on the bank
than find a shelter there. A place of terror! When the wind rises,
the waves mingle hurly-burly with the clouds, the air is stifling
and rumbles with thunder. To thee alone we look for relief."[12]

Beowulf knew that a second and harder contest was at hand, but without
hesitation he followed the bloody trail of Grendel's mother, until it
disappeared at the edge of a terrible flood. Undaunted by the dragons
and serpents that made their home within the depths, he grasped a
sword and plunged beneath the waves. After sinking what seemed to him
a day's space, he saw Grendel's mother, who came forward to meet him.
She dragged him into her dwelling, where there was no water, and the
fight began. The issue was for a time doubtful; but at last Beowulf
ran her through with a gigantic sword, and she fell dead upon the