"But Beowulf took an old and splendid sword that Hrothgar had given him,
and he put on his golden helmet and his iron war shirt that no sword
could cut through, and when he had bade his friends farewell he leapt
straight into the middle of the bog. Down he sank, deeper and deeper
into the water, among strange water beasts that struck at him with their
tusks as he passed them, till at last Grendel's mother, the water-wolf,
looked up from the bottom and saw him coming. Then she sprang upon him,
and seized him, and dragged him down, and he found himself in a sort of
hall under the water, with a pale strange light in it. And then he
turned from the horrible water-wolf and raised his sword and struck her
on the head; but his blow did her no harm. No sword made by mortal men
could harm Grendel or his mother; and as he struck her Beowulf stumbled
and fell. Then the water-wolf rushed forward and sat upon him as he lay
there, and raised aloft her own sharp dagger to drive it into his
breast; but Beowulf shook her off, and sprang up, and there, on the
wall, he saw hanging a strange old sword that had been made in the old
times, long, long ago, when the world was full of giants. So he threw
his own sword aside and took down the old sword, and once more he smote
the water-wolf.
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