statement and has not paused to weigh nicely the dramatic proprieties,
the reply may be made that Bjarki thinks of how weakly the king's hall
is defended when a monster can regularly defy his men and come off
without injury. He does not imply that the hall has been attacked; he
refers to the destruction of "the domain and property of the king." In
any event, the saga does not represent the monster as attacking the
hall. To continue immediately after the statement just quoted: Hott
answered, 'That is no beast, it is rather the greatest troll.' Now came
the Yule-even; and the king said, 'Now I desire that all the men be
still and quiet in the night, and I forbid them all to run any risk on
account of the beast; let the cattle fare as fate wills; my men I do not
wish to lose'. The king expects the cattle to fare ill, but wishes to
run no risk of losing his men; however, if they remain in the hall in
the night, there will be no risk of losing them, because (such is the
necessary conclusion) the hall and the men in the hall will not be
attacked. Hence, the monster cannot be called a hall-attacking monster;
it is a cattle-attacking monster. Again, Bjarki did not expect the
monster to attack the hall. If he had, he would probably have done as
Beowulf did under similar circumstances--awaited its arrival. And the
king's men did not expect the monster to attack the hall, for they seem
to have gone to sleep; this is implied in the statement telling about
Bjarki's and Hott's return to the hall, "Then they went in and were
quiet; no one knew what they had done." If the men had been on guard for
the monster, which was the only rational thing for them to do if they
expected the hall to be attacked, the opportunity for Bjarki and Hott to
sneak out, remain some length of time, and return, all unobserved, would
have been cut off. Later, after Bjarki had crept out at night and killed
the dragon, compelling Hott to go with him, etc., the saga continues,
"The king asked in the morning whether they knew anything of the beast;
whether it had showed itself anywhere in the night; they told him the