Beowulf Alliterative Adaptation: Part 1
I will preface this by saying this is a personal project. I do not know Old English and this should not be used as an academic resource, this is an adaptation of an existing translation by Benjamin Slade, which can be found here.
Lines that are taken verbatim from this translation will be marked in bold.
In this adaptation I am trying to strike a balance between alliteration and comprehensibility. I am also trying to keep to the spirit of the prose translation by Tolkien which I love so much. Those familiar with it may notice I have kept to some of his artistic choices, such as rejecting the term "Whale-road" and referring to the non-titular Beowulf as "Beow".
Beowulf Alliterative Adaptation: Part 2
Then in the boroughs, Beow the Scylding
Beloved king of a long age
Famed among his folk, his father departed
Elder on the Earthāuntil unto him an heir
High Healfdene, he ruled long-lived
Old and fearsome, the glad Scyldings:
Four sons in succession flowed
Woke in the world, the leaders of legions:
Heorgar, Hrothgar, and Good Halga:
Heard I that Yrse (Ursa) was Onelaās queen
The War-Scylfingās beloved embraced in bed
Hrothgar won success in warcrafts
Honor in war, so warriors and retainers
Eagerly served, joined the young war-band
Made into a mighty battalion; it came to mind
A hall-house, he wished for its command
The grandest mead-hall, to be built by men
A legend forever among their sons
And to there within share all things
Such as God granted him, to young and old,
Except the common land and the lives of men;
Widely was the work commissioned, word sent
To the many peoples of this middle-earth
To furnish this hall of folk. For him the time came
Early, through the men, that it was fully finished
The best of royal halls; he named it Heorot
He whose words everywhere held weight
His boasts rang true; rings and riches he dealt out.
The hall of Heorot towered
High and horn-gabled; it awaited the fate
Of hateful flames; the time not yet nigh
For the furious edge-malice to fatefully awaken
Arising from deadly enmity amid father and son-in-law.
Then the bold spirit, begrudgingly
Endured dreary time, he who dwelt in darkness
Heard every day the distant revelry, echoing
Loud in the hall; there was the harmony of the harp,
The sweet song of the poet; he who spoke well
To narrate the origin of men long ago
How the Almighty wrought the earth
That fair sublime field bounded by water;
Lit the triumphant sun and moon,
Luminaries as lamps for the land-dwellers
And clothed the corners of the earth
With limbs and leaves; life too He formed
Breathed into each that lives and moves.
In this way the lordās men lived in joy,
Happily, until he began
To execute his atrocities, a fiend from Hell
The ghastly demon, Grendel.
Infamous stalker of the marches and moors
Holder of the fen, the desolate stronghold of monsters
The wretched creature ruled from a time
Since he was by the Creator condemned
With the kin of Cain; that killing avenged
By the eternal Lord, the slaying of Abel
That feud he lamented, the Ruler drove him away,
For this crime, away from humankind
Thence unspeakable offspring all awoke;
Ogres, Fae, and spirits of the underworld
Likewise giants, who wrestled with God.
For an endless season, He granted their reward for that
