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Hello and welcome to the Spectator's Book Club podcast. I'm Sam Leith, the literary editor for The Spectator.

And this week I'm joined by the writer Maria Davana Headley, whose new book is a translation

of Beowulf, a new translation of Bear Wolf, and what she calls a feminist translation

of Beowulf. I don't know if that's been tried before, but it starts, or started the project

according to Maria's introduction with a fascination with Grendel's mother about

him she wrote a novel, The Mere Wife. And so to start our podcast, Maria's going to read us a little bit

of the battle with Grendel's mother. Okay, here we go. The Prince of Weathergeats was done

standing on ceremony. He stepped to the mirror's edge and dove like a stone, thrown not to

skip but to wait a ship shrouded corpse. Darkness drew him down. Most of a day was done before he could see

the contours of the bottom. She, who'd ruled these floodlands proudly for a hundred seasons,

ferocious, tenacious, rapacious, yes, she, felt his

presence in her realm and knew a man from above was invading the below. She swam and seized him,

but his body was swathed, Borhelm war shirt, and she couldn't peel the mail off to reveal his dread

fate, nor impale him on fingernails. She dragged him through dregs instead.

The sea wolf slung the soldier out of the abyss and into her hall.

He was too tightly held to wield his sword, no matter how he wished to war against her.

As she swam, a shoal came seeking to school him, a scrimshaw selection of sea monsters,

rising out of the dark, tunneling with tooth and tusk,

spearing and jeering.

Sharks, seals, squealing beasts,

boring through the bog, biting at his battle shirt.

...