title: Cause and Effect in Beowulf: Motivation and Driving Forces Behind Words and Deeds
author: Martin Puhvel
description: <b>Martin Puhvel</b> is Emeritus Professor of English at McGill University. His publications include <i>Beowulf and Celtic Tradition</i> and numerous articles on <i>Beowulf</i>.
zlib_text: BITTER END
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Sarah Cawkwell
  
  For many years, he had made bargains, accords and dark pacts, both with powers
  he could name and several more that he dared not. He could not remember the
  last time he had merely requested something and the Imperium had provided it.
  In the days of his hated and enforced servitude to the Corpse-Emperor, he had
  but to requisition something and it was his.
  
  Now, whenever he wanted something, Huron Blackheart simply reached out with
  the might of his loyal Red Corsairs and he took it. His greedy, grasping claws
  closed around objects, people and entire star systems and stole them away. He
  looted and plundered, he stole and he murdered. Occasionally though, he would
  come upon a treasure that he could not simply claim.
  
  When this happened, he would be roused from the shadows in which he now
  existed and he would hunt down his quarry in an entirely different manner. He
  would sit down with agents of the most powerful and most influential and he
  would talk. He wo