"Turkil the Valiant called me Grendel, Father. Also I think you came out
to exorcise the same by name, for I heard it in the Latin. But that was
a heathen fiend."

The hermit sighed a little and answered me.

"They sing the song of Beowulf and love it, heathen though it be, better
than aught else, and will till one rises up who will turn Holy Writ into
their mother tongue, as Caedmon did for Northumbria. Howbeit, doubtless
those who were fiends in the days of the false gods are fiends yet, and
if Grendel then, so also Grendel now, though he may have many other
names. And knowing that name from their songs, small wonder that the
terror that came from the marsh must needs be he. And, no doubt," went
on the good priest, though with a little twinkle in his eye, "he knew
well enough whom I came to exorcise, even if the name were wrong, had he
indeed been visibly here."

So he spoke: but my mind was wandering away to my own trouble; and when
I spoke of Sherborne just now, the thought of Bishop Ealhstan and his
words had come to me, and I wondered if I would tell my troubles to this
old man as he bade me. But, though to think of it showed that I was
again more myself, something of yesterday's bitterness rose up again as
the scene at the Moot came back, and I would not.

The priest was silent for a while, and must have watched my face as
these thoughts hardened it again.

"Be not wroth with an old man, my son," he said, very gently; "but there
is some trouble on your mind, as one who has watched the faces of men as