03/25/26

[mishey22]

The episode's title appears in a 2001 translation of the poem Beowulf, by the Irish poet and translator Seamus Heaney. Heaney's translation of a passage in line 1459 to 1460 reads "The iron blade with its ill-boding patterns had been tempered in blood." The passage is about the Hrunting, the sword given to Beowulf by Unferth.

Note that the original description of the blade in Old English, "ätertänum fäh," does not actually translate as "ill-boding patterns": It literally means "adorned with poison-twigs" or "patterned by twigs of venom."