When the feast draws to an end the fear of Grendel returns.
Hrothgar warns his guests that no weapon can harm the monster, that
it is death to sleep in the hall; then the Spear Danes retire,
leaving Beowulf and his companions to keep watch and ward. With the
careless confidence of brave men, forthwith they all fall asleep:

Forth from the fens, from the misty moorlands,
Grendel came gliding--God's wrath he bore--
Came under clouds until he saw clearly,
Glittering with gold plates, the mead-hall of men.
Down fell the door, though hardened with fire-bands,
Open it sprang at the stroke of his paw.
Swollen with rage burst in the bale-bringer,
Flamed in his eyes a fierce light, likest fire.

[Sidenote: THE FIGHT WITH GRENDEL]

Throwing himself upon the nearest sleeper Grendel crushes and
swallows him; then he stretches out a paw towards Beowulf, only to
find it "seized in such a grip as the fiend had never felt before."
A desperate conflict begins, and a mighty uproar,--crashing of
benches, shoutings of men, the "war-song" of Grendel, who is trying
to break the grip of his foe. As the monster struggles toward the
door, dragging the hero with him, a wide wound opens on his
shoulder; the sinews snap, and with a mighty wrench Beowulf tears
off the whole limb. While Grendel rushes howling across the fens,
Beowulf hangs the grisly arm with its iron claws, "the whole
grapple of Grendel," over the door where all may see it.