Fitt XXVIII — The Homeward Journey — The Two Queens

The shore-warden at Heorot who had challenged the arriving Geats weeks earlier now rides down to meet the departing warriors. He is greeted without insult. Beowulf gives him a gold-bound sword as a gift — the act of a man who understands that the man who guards the approach to a great hall is worth honoring — and the ship pushes off into the sea.

The voyage home is swift. The wave-goer runs on the wind until the well-known headlands of the Geats appear and the ship grinds up onto the familiar shore. The harbor-warden at home is ready, which is noted as a mark of good order in the kingdom. The treasure-laden Geats land without incident.

The poet then digresses on two queens in quick succession. Hygd, Hygelac's young wife — few winters in the stronghold, yet wise and open-handed, not stingy with gifts to the Geats — is introduced and praised. Against her is set the figure of Thrytho, an earlier queen whose cruelty is remembered: she had warriors put to death for daring to look at her by daylight, until she was given in marriage to Offa and became, under his firm goodness, a better queen. The contrast of the two is left for the reader to hold.