The Danes celebrate the next day with a huge feast featuring entertainment by Hrothgar’s scop (pronounced “shop”), a professional bard who accompanies himself on a harp and sings or chants traditional lays such as an account of the Danes’ victory at Finnsburh. This bard also improvises a song about Beowulf’s victory. Hrothgar’s wife, Queen Wealhtheow, proves to be a perfect hostess, offering Beowulf a gold collar and her gratitude. Filled with mead, wine, and great food, the entire party retires for what they expect to be the first peaceful night in years.
But Grendel’s mother — not quite as powerful as her son but highly motivated — climbs to Heorot that night, retrieves her son’s claw, and murderously abducts one of the Scyldings (Aeschere) while Beowulf sleeps elsewhere. The next morning, Hrothgar, Beowulf, and a retinue of Scyldings and Geats follow the mother’s tracks into a dark, forbidding swamp and to the edge of her mere. The slaughtered Aeschere’s head sits on a cliff by the lake, which hides the ogres’ underground cave. Carrying a sword called Hrunting, a gift from the chastised Unferth, Beowulf dives into the mere to seek the mother.
Near the bottom of the lake, Grendel’s mother attacks and hauls the Geat warrior to her dimly lit cave. Beowulf fights back once inside the dry cavern, but the gift sword, Hrunting, strong as it is, fails to penetrate the ogre’s hide. The mother moves to kill Beowulf with her knife, but his armor, made by the legendary blacksmith Weland, protects him. Suddenly Beowulf spots a magical, giant sword and uses it to cut through the mother’s spine at the neck, killing her. A blessed light unexplainably illuminates the cavern, disclosing Grendel’s corpse and a great deal of treasure. Beowulf decapitates the corpse. The magic sword melts to its hilt. Beowulf returns to the lake’s surface carrying the head and hilt but leaving the treasure.
