Grendel
"I watch a great horned goat ascend the rocks toward my mere. I have half a mind to admire his bottomless stupidity. 'Hey, goat!' I yell down. 'There's nothing here. Go back.' He lifts his head, considers me, then lowers it again to keep an eye on crevasses and seams, icy scree, slick rocky ledges--doggedly continuing. I tip up a boulder and let it fall thundering toward him. His ears flap up in alarm, he stiffens, looks around him in haste, and jumps. The boulder bounds past him. He watches it fall, then turns his head looks up at me disapprovingly. Then, lowering his head again, he continues. It is the businesess of goats to climb. He means to climb. 'Ah, goat, goat!' I say as if deeply disappointed in him. 'Use your reason! There's nothing here!' He keeps on coming. I am suddenly annoyed, no longer amused by his stupidity. The mere belongs to me and the firesnakes. What if everybody should decide the place is public? 'Go back down, goat!' I yell at him. He keeps on climbing, mindless, mechanical, because it is the business of goats to climb. 'Not here,' I yell. 'If climbing's your duty to the gods, go climb the meadhall.' He keeps on climbing. I run back from the edge to a dead tree, throw myself against it and break it off and drag it back to the cliffwall. 'You've had fair warning,' I yell at him. I'm enraged now. The words come echoing back to me. I lay the tree sideways, wait for the goat to be in better range, then shove. It drops with a crash and rolls crookedly toward him. He darts left, reverses himself and bounds to the right, and a limb catches him. He bleats, falling, flopping over with a jerk too quick for the eye, and bleats again, scrambling, sliding toward the ledge-side. The tree, slowly rolling, drops out of sight. His sharp front hooves dig in and he jerks onto his feet, but before his balance is sure my stone hits him and falls again. I leap down to make certain he goes over this time. He finds his feet the same instant that my second stone hits. It splits his skull, and blood sprays out past his dangling brains, yet he doesn't fall. He threatens me, blind. It's not easy to kill a mountain goat. He thinks with his spine. A death tremor shakes his flanks, but he picks toward me, jerking his great twisted horns at air. I back off, upward toward the mere the goat will never reach. I smile, threatened by an animal already dead, still climbing. I snatch up a stone and hurl it. It smashes his mouth, spraying out teeth, and penetrates to the jugular. He drops to his knees, gets up again. The air is sweet with the scent of his blood. Death shakes his body the way high wind shakes trees. He climbs towards me. I snatch up a stone."
Gardner, John. Grendel. New York: Random House, Inc. 1971.