The House of the Wolfings
"O Thiodolf, now tell me for what cause thou wouldst not bear
This grey wall of the hammer in the tempest of the spear?
Didst thou doubt my faith, O Folk-wolf, or the counsel of the Gods,
That thou needs must cast thee naked midst the flashing battle-rods,
Or is thy pride so mighty that it seemed to thee indeed
That death was a better guerdon than the love of the Godhead's seed?"
But Thiodolf said: "O Wood-Sun, this thou hast a right to ask of me, why
I have not worn in the battle thy gift, the Treasure of the World, the
Dwarf-wrought Hauberk! And what is this that thou sayest? I doubt not
thy faith towards me and thine abundant love: and as for the rede of the
Gods, I know it not, nor may I know it, nor turn it this way nor that:
and as for thy love and that I would choose death sooner, I know not what
thou meanest; I will not say that I love thy love better than life
itself; for these two, my life and my love, are blended together and may
not be sundered.
"Hearken therefore as to the Hauberk: I wot well that it is for no light
matter that thou wouldst have me bear thy gift, the wondrous hauberk,
into battle; I deem that some doom is wrapped up in it; maybe that I
shall fall before the foe if I wear it not; and that if I wear it,
somewhat may betide me which is unmeet to betide a warrior of the
Wolfings. Therefore will I tell thee why I have fought in two battles
with the Romans with unmailed body, and why I left the hauberk, (which I
see that thou bearest in thine arms) in the Roof of the Daylings. For
when I entered therein, clad in the hauberk, there came to meet me an
ancient man, one of the very valiant of days past, and he looked on me
with the eyes of love, as though he had been the very father of our folk,
and I the man that was to come after him to carry on the life thereof.
But when he saw the hauberk and touched it, then was his love smitten
cold with sadness and he spoke words of evil omen; so that putting this
together with thy words about the gift, and that thou didst in a manner
compel me to wear it, I could not but deem that this mail is for the
ransom of a man and the ruin of a folk.
"Wilt thou say that it is not so? then will I wear the hauberk, and live
and die happy. But if thou sayest that I have deemed aright, and that a
curse goeth with the hauberk, then either for the sake of the folk I will
not wear the gift and the curse, and I shall die in great glory, and
because of me the House shall live; or else for thy sake I shall bear it
and live, and the House shall live or die as may be, but I not helping,
nay I no longer of the House nor in it. How sayest thou?"
Then she said:
"Hail be thy mouth, beloved, for that last word of thine,
And the hope that thine heart conceiveth and the hope that is born in
mine.
Yea, for a man's delivrance was the hauberk born indeed
That once more the mighty warrior might help the folk at need.
And where is the curse's dwelling if thy life be saved to dwell
Amidst the Wolfing warriors and the folk that loves thee well
And the house where the high Gods left thee to be cherished well
therein?
"Yea more: I have told thee, beloved, that thou art not of the kin;
The blood in thy body is blended of the wandering Elking race,
And one that I may not tell of, who in God-home hath his place,
And who changed his shape to beget thee in the wild-wood's leafy roof.
How then shall the doom of the Wolfings be woven in the woof
Which the Norns for thee have shuttled? or shall one man of war
Cast down the tree of the Wolfings on the roots that spread so far?
O friend, thou art wise and mighty, but other men have lived
Beneath the Wolfing roof-tree whereby the folk has thrived."
He reddened at her word; but his eyes looked eagerly on her. She cast
down the hauberk, and drew one step nigher to him. She knitted her
brows, her face waxed terrible, and her stature seemed to grow greater,
as she lifted up her gleaming right arm, and cried out in a great voice.
"Thou Thiodolf the Mighty! Hadst thou will to cast the net
And tangle the House in thy trouble, it is I would slay thee yet;
For 'tis I and I that love them, and my sorrow would I give,
And thy life, thou God of battle, that the Wolfing House might live."
Therewith she rushed forward, and cast herself upon him, and threw her
arms about him, and strained him to her bosom, and kissed his face, and
he her in likewise, for there was none to behold them, and nought but the
naked heaven was the roof above their heads.
And now it was as if the touch of her face and her body, and the
murmuring of her voice changed and soft close to his ear, as she murmured
mere words of love to him, drew him away from the life of deeds and
doubts and made a new world for him, wherein he beheld all those fair
pictures of the happy days that had been in his musings when first he
left the field of the dead.
So they sat down on the grey stone together hand in hand, her head laid
upon his shoulder, no otherwise than if they had been two lovers, young
and without renown in days of deep peace.
So as they sat, her foot smote on the cold hilts of the sword, which
Thiodolf had laid down in the grass; and she stooped and took it up, and
laid it across her knees and his as they sat there; and she looked on
Throng-plough as he lay still in the sheath, and smiled on him, and saw
that the peace-strings were not yet wound about his hilts. So she drew
him forth and raised him up in her hand, and he gleamed white and fearful
in the growing dawn, for all things had now gotten their colours again,
whereas amidst their talking had the night worn, and the moon low down
was grown white and pale.
But she leaned aside, and laid her cheek against Thiodolf's, and he took
the sword out of her hand and set it on his knees again, and laid his
right hand on it, and said:
"Two things by these blue edges in the face of the dawning I swear;
And first this warrior's ransom in the coming fight to bear,
And evermore to love thee who hast given me second birth.
And by the sword I swear it, and by the Holy Earth,
To live for the House of the Wolfings, and at last to die for their
need.
For though I trow thy saying that I am not one of their seed,
Nor yet by the hand have been taken and unto the Father shown
As a very son of the Fathers, yet mid them hath my body grown;
And I am the guest of their Folk-Hall, and each one there is my
friend.
So with them is my joy and sorrow, and my life, and my death in the
end.
Now whatso doom hereafter my coming days shall bide,
Thou speech-friend, thou deliverer, thine is this dawning-tide."
She spoke no word to him; but they rose up and went hand in hand down the
dale, he still bearing his naked sword over his shoulder, and thus they
went together into the yew-copse at the dale's end. There they abode
till after the rising of the sun, and each to each spake many loving
words at their departure; and the Wood-Sun went her ways at her will.
But Thiodolf went up the dale again, and set Throng-plough in his sheath,
and wound the peace-strings round him. Then he took up the hauberk from
the grass whereas the Wood-Sun had cast it, and did it on him, as it were
of the attire he was wont to carry daily. So he girt Throng-plough to
him, and went soberly up to the ridge-top to the folk, who were just
stirring in the early morning.
CHAPTER XVIII--TIDINGS BROUGHT TO THE WAIN-BURG
Now it must be told of Otter and they of the Wain-burg how they had the
tidings of the overthrow of the Romans on the Ridge, and that Egil had
left them on his way to Wolf-stead. They were joyful of the tale, as was
like to be, but eager also to strike their stroke at the foemen, and in
that mood they abode fresh tidings.
It has been told how Otter had sent the Bearings and the Wormings to the
aid of Thiodolf and his folk, and these two were great kindreds, and they
being gone, there abode with Otter, one man with another, thralls and
freemen, scant three thousand men: of these many were bowmen good to
fight from behind a wall or fence, or some such cover, but scarce meet to
withstand a shock in the open field. However it was deemed at this time
in the Wain-burg that Thiodolf and his men would soon return to them; and
in any case, they said, he lay between the Romans and the Mark, so that
they had but little doubt; or rather they feared that the Romans might
draw aback from the Mark before they could be met in battle again, for as
aforesaid they were eager for the fray.
Now it was in the cool of the evening two days after the Battle on the
Ridge, that the men, both freemen and thralls, had been disporting
themselves in the plain ground without the Burg in casting the spear and
putting the stone, and running races a-foot and a-horseback, and now
close on sunset three young men, two of the Laxings and one of the
Shieldings, and a grey old thrall of that same House, were shooting a
match with the bow, driving their shafts at a rushen roundel hung on a
pole which the old thrall had dight. Men were peaceful and happy, for
the time was fair and calm, and, as aforesaid, they dreaded not the Roman
Host any more than if they were Gods dwelling in God-home. The shooters
were deft men, and they of the Burg were curious to note their deftness,
and many were breathed with the games wherein they had striven, and
thought it good to rest, and look on the new sport: so they sat and stood
on the grass about the shooters on three sides, and the mead-horn went
briskly from man to man; for there was no lack of meat and drink in the
Burg, whereas the kindreds that lay nighest to it had brought in abundant
provision, and women of the kindreds had come to them, and not a few were
there scattered up and down among the carles.
Now the Shielding man, Geirbald by name, had just loosed at the mark, and
had shot straight and smitten the roundel in the midst, and a shout went
up from the onlookers thereat; but that shout was, as it were, lined with
another, and a cry that a messenger was riding toward the Burg: thereat
most men looked round toward the wood, because their minds were set on
fresh tidings from Thiodolf's company, but as it happened it was from the
north and the side toward Mid-mark that they on the outside of the throng
had seen the rider coming; and presently the word went from man to man
that so it was, and that the new comer was a young man on a grey horse,
and would speedily be amongst them; so they wondered what the tidings
might be, but yet they did not break up the throng, but abode in their
places that they might receive the messenger more orderly; and as the
rider drew near, those who were nighest to him perceived that it was a
woman.
So men made way before the grey horse, and its rider, and the horse was
much spent and travel-worn. So the woman rode right into the ring of
warriors, and drew rein there, and lighted down slowly and painfully, and
when she was on the ground could scarce stand for stiffness; and two or
three of the swains drew near her to help her, and knew her at once for
Hrosshild of the Wolfings, for she was well-known as a doughty woman.
Then she said: "Bring me to Otter the War-duke; or bring him hither to
me, which were best, since so many men are gathered together; and
meanwhile give me to drink; for I am thirsty and weary."
So while one went for Otter, another reached to her the mead-horn, and
she had scarce done her draught, ere Otter was there, for they had found
him at the gate of the Burg. He had many a time been in the Wolfing
Hall, so he knew her at once and said:
"Hail, Hrosshild! how farest thou?"