Their ocean-coursers curvet at the marge;

* * * * *

This time I will with poetic art rehearse, by means of words and wit, a
poem about a kind of fish, the great sea-monster which is often
unwillingly met, terrible and cruel-hearted to seafarers, yea, to every
man; this swimmer of the ocean-streams is known as the asp-turtle.

His appearance is like that of a rough boulder, as if there were tossing
by the shore a great ocean-reedbank begirt with sand-dunes, so that
seamen imagine they are gazing upon an island, and moor their
high-prowed ships with cables to that false land, make fast the
ocean-coursers at the sea's end, and, bold of heart, climb up

* * * * *

and þonne in þæt ēglond ūp gewītað
collenfer[_h_]þe; cēolas stondað
bi staþe fæste strēame biwunden.
Ðonne gewīciað wērigfer[_h_]ðe,
20 faroðlācende, frēcnes ne wēnað.
On þām ēalonde ǣled weccað,
hēah fyr ǣlað. Hæleþ bēoþ on wynnum,
rēonigmōde, ræste gel[y]ste.
Þonne gefēleð fācnes cræftig
25 þæt him þā fērend on fæste wuniaþ,
wīc weardiað, wedres on luste,
ðonne semninga on sealtne wǣg
mid þā nōþe niþer gewīteþ,