A few miles from here a frost-stiffened
wood waits and keeps watch above a lake.
The overhanging bank is a maze of
tree-roots mirrored in its surface.

At night there, something uncanny happens.
The water burns.

And the lake bottom has never been
sounded by the sons of men.

On its bank, the heather-stepper halts.
The hart in flight from pursuing hounds
will turn to face them with firm-set
horns and die in the woods rather than
dive beneath the water's surface.

That is no good place.

-- Beowulf