The House of the Wolfings
And the wrights that forge its thraldom and the sword to slay its
mirth?
Fear they that the sons of the wild-wood the Loathly Folk shall quell,
And grow into Gods thereafter, and aloof in God-home dwell?"
Therewith he turned back into the Hall, and was heavy-hearted and dreary
of aspect; for he was somewhat foreseeing; and it may not be hidden that
this seeming Thorkettle was no warrior of the Wolfings, but the Wood-Sun
in his likeness; for she had the power and craft of shape-changing.
CHAPTER XVII--THE WOOD-SUN SPEAKETH WITH THIODOLF
Now the Markmen laid Heriulf in howe on the ridge-crest where he had
fallen, and heaped a mighty howe over him that could be seen from far,
and round about him they laid the other warriors of the kindreds. For
they deemed it was fittest that they should lie on the place whose story
they had fashioned. But they cast earth on the foemen lower down on the
westward-lying bents.
The sun set amidst their work, and night came on; and Thiodolf was weary
and would fain rest him and sleep: but he had many thoughts, and pondered
whitherward he should lead the folk, so as to smite the Romans once
again, and he had a mind to go apart and be alone for rest and slumber;
so he spoke to a man of the kindred named Solvi in whom he put all trust,
and then he went down from the ridge, and into a little dale on the
southwest side thereof, a furlong from the place of the battle. A beck
ran down that dale, and the further end of it was closed by a little wood
of yew trees, low, but growing thick together, and great grey stones were
scattered up and down on the short grass of the dale. Thiodolf went down
to the brook-side, and to a place where it trickled into a pool, whence
it ran again in a thin thread down the dale, turning aside before it
reached the yew-wood to run its ways under low ledges of rock into a
wider dale. He looked at the pool and smiled to himself as if he had
thought of something that pleased him; then he drew a broad knife from
his side, and fell to cutting up turfs till he had what he wanted; and
then he brought stones to the place, and built a dam across the mouth of
the pool, and sat by on a great stone to watch it filling.
As he sat he strove to think about the Roman host and how he should deal
with it; but despite himself his thoughts wandered, and made for him
pictures of his life that should be when this time of battle was over; so
that he saw nothing of the troubles that were upon his hands that night,
but rather he saw himself partaking in the deeds of the life of man.
There he was between the plough-stilts in the acres of the kindred when
the west wind was blowing over the promise of early spring; or smiting
down the ripe wheat in the hot afternoon amidst the laughter and merry
talk of man and maid; or far away over Mirkwood-water watching the edges
of the wood against the prowling wolf and lynx, the stars just beginning
to shine over his head, as now they were; or wending the windless woods
in the first frosts before the snow came, the hunter's bow or javelin in
hand: or coming back from the wood with the quarry on the sledge across
the snow, when winter was deep, through the biting icy wind and the whirl
of the drifting snow, to the lights and music of the Great Roof, and the
merry talk therein and the smiling of the faces glad to see the hunting-
carles come back; and the full draughts of mead, and the sweet rest a
night-tide when the north wind was moaning round the ancient home.
All seemed good and fair to him, and whiles he looked around him, and saw
the long dale lying on his left hand and the dark yews in its jaws
pressing up against the rock-ledges of the brook, and on his right its
windings as the ground rose up to the buttresses of the great ridge. The
moon was rising over it, and he heard the voice of the brook as it
tinkled over the stones above him; and the whistle of the plover and the
laugh of the whimbrel came down the dale sharp and clear in the calm
evening; and sounding far away, because the great hill muffled them, were
the voices of his fellows on the ridge, and the songs of the warriors and
the high-pitched cries of the watch. And this also was a part of the
sweet life which was, and was to be; and he smiled and was happy and
loved the days that were coming, and longed for them, as the young man
longs for the feet of his maiden at the trysting-place.
So as he sat there, the dreams wrapping him up from troublous thoughts,
at last slumber overtook him, and the great warrior of the Wolfings sat
nodding like an old carle in the chimney ingle, and he fell asleep, his
dreams going with him, but all changed and turned to folly and emptiness.
He woke with a start in no long time; the night was deep, the wind had
fallen utterly, and all sounds were stilled save the voice of the brook,
and now and again the cry of the watchers of the Goths. The moon was
high and bright, and the little pool beside him glittered with it in all
its ripples; for it was full now and trickling over the lip of his dam.
So he arose from the stone and did off his war-gear, casting
Throng-plough down into the grass beside him, for he had been minded to
bathe him, but the slumber was still on him, and he stood musing while
the stream grew stronger and pushed off first one of his turfs and then
another, and rolled two or three of the stones over, and then softly
thrust all away and ran with a gush down the dale, filling all the little
bights by the way for a minute or two; he laughed softly thereat, and
stayed the undoing of his kirtle, and so laid himself down on the grass
beside the stone looking down the dale, and fell at once into a dreamless
sleep.
When he awoke again, it was yet night, but the moon was getting lower and
the first beginnings of dawn were showing in the sky over the ridge; he
lay still a moment gathering his thoughts and striving to remember where
he was, as is the wont of men waking from deep sleep; then he leapt to
his feet, and lo, he was face to face with a woman, and she who but the
Wood-Sun? and he wondered not, but reached out his hand to touch her,
though he had not yet wholly cast off the heaviness of slumber or
remembered the tidings of yesterday.
She drew aback a little from him, and his eyes cleared of the slumber,
and he saw her that she was scantily clad in black raiment, barefoot,
with no gold ring on her arms or necklace on her neck, or crown about her
head. But she looked so fair and lovely even in that end of the night-
tide, that he remembered all her beauty of the day and the sunshine, and
he laughed aloud for joy of the sight of her, and said:
"What aileth thee, O Wood-Sun, and is this a new custom of thy kindred
and the folk of God-home that their brides array themselves like thralls
new-taken, and as women who have lost their kindred and are outcast? Who
then hath won the Burg of the Anses, and clomb the rampart of God-home?"
But she spoke from where she stood in a voice so sweet, that it thrilled
to the very marrow of his bones.
"I have dwelt a while with sorrow since we met, we twain, in the wood:
I have mourned, while thou hast been merry, who deemest the war-play
good.
For I know the heart of the wilful and how thou wouldst cast away
The rampart of thy life-days, and the wall of my happy day.
Yea I am the thrall of Sorrow; she hath stripped my raiment off
And laid sore stripes upon me with many a bitter scoff.
Still bidding me remember that I come of the God-folk's kin,
And yet for all my godhead no love of thee may win."
Then she looked longingly at him a while and at last could no longer
refrain her, but drew nigh him and took his hands in hers, and kissed his
mouth, and said as she caressed him:
"O where are thy wounds, beloved? how turned the spear from thy
breast,
When the storm of war blew strongest, and the best men met the best?
Lo, this is the tale of to-day: but what shall to-morrow tell?
That Thiodolf the Mighty in the fight's beginning fell;
That there came a stroke ill-stricken, there came an aimless thrust,
And the life of the people's helper lay quenched in the summer dust."
He answered nothing, but smiled as though the sound of her voice and the
touch of her hand were pleasant to him, for so much love there was in
her, that her very grief was scarcely grievous. But she said again:
"Thou sayest it: I am outcast; for a God that lacketh mirth
Hath no more place in God-home and never a place on earth.
A man grieves, and he gladdens, or he dies and his grief is gone;
But what of the grief of the Gods, and the sorrow never undone?
Yea verily I am the outcast. When first in thine arms I lay
On the blossoms of the woodland my godhead passed away;
Thenceforth unto thee was I looking for the light and the glory of
life
And the Gods' doors shut behind me till the day of the uttermost
strife.
And now thou hast taken my soul, thou wilt cast it into the night,
And cover thine head with the darkness, and turn thine eyes from the
light.
Thou wouldst go to the empty country where never a seed is sown
And never a deed is fashioned, and the place where each is alone;
But I thy thrall shall follow, I shall come where thou seemest to lie,
I shall sit on the howe that hides thee, and thou so dear and nigh!
A few bones white in their war-gear that have no help or thought,
Shall be Thiodolf the Mighty, so nigh, so dear--and nought."
His hands strayed over her shoulders and arms, caressing them, and he
said softly and lovingly:
"I am Thiodolf the Mighty: but as wise as I may be
No story of that grave-night mine eyes can ever see,
But rather the tale of the Wolfings through the coming days of earth,
And the young men in their triumph and the maidens in their mirth;
And morn's promise every evening, and each day the promised morn,
And I amidst it ever reborn and yet reborn.
This tale I know, who have seen it, who have felt the joy and pain,
Each fleeing, each pursuing, like the links of the draw-well's chain:
But that deedless tide of the grave-mound, and the dayless nightless
day,
E'en as I strive to see it, its image wanes away.
What say'st thou of the grave-mound? shall I be there at all
When they lift the Horn of Remembrance, and the shout goes down the
hall,
And they drink the Mighty War-duke and Thiodolf the old?
Nay rather; there where the youngling that longeth to be bold
Sits gazing through the hall-reek and sees across the board
A vision of the reaping of the harvest of the sword,
There shall Thiodolf be sitting; e'en there shall the youngling be
That once in the ring of the hazels gave up his life to thee."
She laughed as he ended, and her voice was sweet, but bitter was her
laugh. Then she said:
"Nay thou shalt be dead, O warrior, thou shalt not see the Hall
Nor the children of thy people 'twixt the dais and the wall.
And I, and I shall be living; still on thee shall waste my thought:
I shall long and lack thy longing; I shall pine for what is nought."
But he smiled again, and said:
"Not on earth shall I learn this wisdom; and how shall I learn it then
When I lie alone in the grave-mound, and have no speech with men?
But for thee,--O doubt it nothing that my life shall live in thee,
And so shall we twain be loving in the days that yet shall be."
It was as if she heard him not; and she fell aback from him a little and
stood silently for a while as one in deep thought; and then turned and
went a few paces from him, and stooped down and came back again with
something in her arms (and it was the hauberk once more), and said
suddenly: