Dictionary

shadow-stalker en · NOUN

Etymology

Alliterative literary calque of Old English sceadugenga, from sceadu (“shadow”) + genga (“goer, walker”).

Meanings

1. A monster or other malevolent figure that moves about at night.
   • The out of the night came the shadow-stalker, stealthy and swift. 1999, Seamus Heaney, Beowulf, London: Faber and Faber, page 23:
   • In the wan darkness, while the warriors slept, the shadow-stalker drew near from the moorland. 1898, Stopford A. Brooke, English literature: From the Beginning to the Norman Conquest, New York: The Macmillan Company, page 73:
   • [T]he shadow-stalker will not draw anyone down to the shades unless God wills it. 1952, John A. Nist, The Structure and Texture of Beowulf, London: Faber and Faber, page 53:

Forms