Springtime For Heorot, and Germany

I don't want to sound like a stuck record on this Beowulf thing (I'll be finished with my version soon enough, I hope; and then this blog can move onto to something, or -things, else); but I've just reached the bit where, having killed Grendl's mother, Beowulf's sword melts away:

Then the sword, because
of the blood on it, began to shard into sharp icicles,
the war-blade withering. It was weird to watch it:
all of it melting away the way ice does,
when frost’s binding is loosed by the Father,
and sea-ice unwinds, and everything eases
seasons and times; He is the true God! [1605-11]

I note this because it strikes me as more evidence for a 'Green Man' reading of the poem: by killing the monster Beowulf has killed winter. ('Germany' in the post title, up there, is vai this).