[719] heardran hǣle, healðegnas fand. hæle, hilde, hælescipes, and the like are metrically, at any rate, safer than hæle (T.C. § 17). Holthausen's former interpretation (Angl. xxiv 267) of heardran hæle (from hǣl 'omen') as 'in a worse plight' (or with A. J. Daniels's modification [Kasussyntax zu den Predigten Wulfstans, Leiden Diss., 1904, p. 162]: 'tot een rampzaliger omen,' i.e. in effect, 'with a more disastrous result') was a happy suggestion -- cp. ME. expressions like to wroþer hele, till illerhayle, 'with il a hail (see, e.g., Matzner, AE. Sprachþroben, Wbch. ii 391a), ON. illu helli --, but this use of the dat. appears rather doubtful. The same is true of Sedgefield's rendering 'with sterner greeting' (from hǣlo). We may venture to take heardran hǣle as acc. sing., 'worse luck' -- cp. the meaning of heardsālþ, heardsǣlig --, heardran referring at the same time to the second object, healðegnas. That seemingly incongruous objects may be governed by one and the same verb, is seen from 653 f.
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Beowulf. Fr. Klaeber. Boston. D.C. Heath and Company. 1922.
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