Giants

When Beowulf presents King Hrothgar with a sword taken from Grendel’s cave, the engraving on the hilt describes “a battle long ago, when a flood, a rushing sea, slew the race of giants; they had lived boldly; that race was estranged from the eternal Lord.  The Ruler gave them final requital for that in the surge of the water.”  This inscription alludes to GENESIS 6:4, “There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.