xiii + 150 pp.; b/w illus. This book is an illustrated version of Crossley-Holland's translation, otherwise identical (other than in changes to pagination caused by the illustrations) to the unillustrated version published by Farrar, Straus, & Giroux in the same year. It contains three drawings by Hanf on pp. 52, 74-75, and 107. Hanf's drawings are abstract representations of Grendel, the monster mere, and the dragon respectively.

Crossley-Holland's verse translation is preceded by a translator's note (ix-xii), an introducer's note by Mitchell (xiii), map, and Mitchell's critical introduction (1-29), and is followed by appendices (125-50) containing a translation of The Fight at Finnsburh, a formal analysis of two passages, an index of names, genealogical tables, and "Notes on Episodes and Digressions," then a bibliography (147-50).

The translation begins:

Listen!
          The fame of Danish kings
in days gone by, the daring feats
worked by those heroes are well known to us.

Scyld Scefing often deprived his enemies,
many tribes of men, of their mead-benches.
He terrified his foes; yet he, as a boy,
had been found a waif; fate made amends for that.
He prospered under heaven, won praise and honour
until the men of every neighbouring tribe,
across the whale's way, were obliged to obey him
and pay him tribute. He was a noble king! (32)

And ends:

Then twelve brave warriors, sons of heroes,
rode round the barrow, sorrowing;
they mourned their king, chanted
an elegy, spoke about that great man:
they exalted his heroic life, lauded
his daring deeds; it is fitting for a man,
when his lord and friend must leave this life,
to mouth words in his praise
and to cherish his memory.
Thus the Geats, his hearth-companions,
grieved over the death of their lord;
they said that of all kings on earth
he was the kindest, the most gentle,
the most just to his people, the most eager for fame. (123)

BAM.