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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Doug McCrae" data-source="post: 7999099" data-attributes="member: 21169">Beowulf, Seamus Heaney translation:Yet the prince of the rings was too proud to line up with a large army against the sky-plague. He had scant regard for the dragon as a threat, no dread at all of its courage or strength, for he had kept going often in the past, through perils and ordeals of every sort... The lord of the Geats took eleven comrades and went in a rage to reconnoiter... "Men-at-arms, remain here on the barrow, safe in your armour, to see which one of us is better in the end at bearing wounds in a deadly fray. This fight is not yours, nor is it up to any man except me to measure his strength against the monster or to prove his worth. I shall win the gold by my courage, or else mortal combat, doom of battle, will bear your lord away."... No help or backing was to be had then from his highborn comrades; that hand-picked troop broke ranks and ran for their lives to the safety of the wood. But within one heart sorrow welled up: in a man of worth the claims of kinship cannot be denied. His name was Wiglaf, a son of Weohstan's... Beowulf dealt it a deadly wound. They had killed the enemy, courage quelled his life; that pair of kinsmen, partners in nobility, had destroyed the foe.</blockquote>