The House of the Wolfings
They fare as lads with their cur-dogs who have stopped a fox's earth,
And standing round the spinny, now chuckle in their mirth,
Till one puts by the leafage and trembling stands astare
At the sight of the Wood wolf's father arising in his lair--
They have come for our wives and our children, and our sword-edge
shall they meet;
And which of them is happy save he of the swiftest feet?"
Speedily then went that word along the ranks of the Kindred, and men were
merry with the restless joy of battle: but scarce had two minutes passed
ere suddenly the stillness of the dawn was broken by clamour and uproar;
by shouts and shrieks, and the clashing of weapons from the wood on their
left hand; and over all arose the roar of the Markmen's horn, for the
battle was joined with the second company of the Kindreds. But a rumour
and murmur went from the foemen before Thiodolf's men; and then sprang
forth the loud sharp word of the captains commanding and rebuking, as if
the men were doubtful which way they should take.
Amidst all which Thiodolf brandished his sword, and cried out in a great
voice:
"Now, now, ye War-sons!
Now the Wolf waketh!
Lo how the Wood-beast
Wendeth in onset.
E'en as his feet fare
Fall on and follow!"
And he led forth joyously, and terrible rang the long refrained gathered
shout of his battle as his folk rushed on together devouring the little
space between their ambush and the hazel-beset greensward.
In the twinkling of an eye the half-moon had lapped around the
Roman-Goths and those that were with them; and the dastards made no stand
but turned about at once, crying out that the Gods of the Kindreds were
come to aid and none could withstand them. But these fleers thrust
against the band of Romans who were next to them, and bore them aback,
and great was the turmoil; and when Thiodolf's storm fell full upon them,
as it failed not to do, so close were they driven together that scarce
could any man raise his hand for a stroke. For behind them stood a great
company of those valiant spearmen of the Romans, who would not give way
if anywise they might hold it out: and their ranks were closely serried,
shield nigh touching shield, and their faces turned toward the foe; and
so arrayed, though they might die, they scarce knew how to flee. As they
might these thrust and hewed at the fleers, and gave fierce words but few
to the Roman-Goths, driving them back against their foemen: but the
fleers had lost the cunning of their right hands, and they had cast away
their shields and could not defend their very bodies against the wrath of
the kindreds; and when they strove to flee to the right hand or to the
left, they were met by the horns of the half-moon, and the arrows began
to rain in upon them, and from so close were they shot at that no shaft
failed to smite home.
There then were the dastards slain; and their bodies served for a rampart
against the onrush of the Markmen to those Romans who had stood fast. To
them were gathering more and more every minute, and they faced the Goths
steadily with their hard brown visages and gleaming eyes above their iron-
plated shields; not casting their spears, but standing closely together,
silent, but fierce. The light was spread now over all the earth; the
eastern heavens were grown golden-red, flecked here and there with little
crimson clouds: this battle was fallen near silent, but to the North was
great uproar of shouts and cries, and the roaring of the war-horns, and
the shrill blasts of the brazen trumpets.
Now Thiodolf, as his wont was when he saw that all was going well, had
refrained himself of hand-strokes, but was here and there and everywhere
giving heart to his folk, and keeping them in due order, and close array,
lest the Romans should yet come among them. But he watched the ranks of
the foe, and saw how presently they began to spread out beyond his, and
might, if it were not looked to, take them in flank; and he was about to
order his men anew to meet them, when he looked on his left hand and saw
how Roman men were pouring thick from the wood out of all array, followed
by a close throng of the kindreds: for on this side the Romans were
outnumbered and had stumbled unawares into the ambush of the Markmen, who
had fallen on them straightway and disarrayed them from the first. This
flight of their folk the Romans saw also, and held their men together,
refraining from the onset, as men who deem that they will have enough to
do to stand fast.
But the second battle of the Markmen, (who were of the Nether-mark,
mingled with the Mid-mark) fought wisely, for they swept those fleers
from before them, slaying many and driving the rest scattering, yet held
the chase for no long way, but wheeling about came sidelong on toward the
battle of the Romans and Thiodolf. And when Thiodolf saw that, he set up
the whoop of victory, he and his, and fell fiercely on the Romans,
casting everything that would fly, as they rushed on to the handplay; so
that there was many a Roman slain with the Roman spears that those who
had fallen had left among their foemen.
Now the Roman captains perceived that it availed not to tarry till the
men of the Mid and Nether-marks fell upon their flank; so they gave
command, and their ranks gave back little by little, facing their foes,
and striving to draw themselves within the dike and garth, which, after
their custom, they had already cast up about the Wolfing Roof, their
stronghold.
Now as fierce as was the onset of the Markmen, the main body of the
Romans could not be hindered from doing this much before the men of the
second battle were upon them; but Thiodolf and Arinbiorn with some of the
mightiest brake their array in two places and entered in amongst them.
And wrath so seized upon the soul of Arinbiorn for the slaying of Otter,
and his own fault towards him, that he cast away his shield, and heeding
no strokes, first brake his sword in the press, and then, getting hold of
a great axe, smote at all before him as though none smote at him in turn;
yea, as though he were smiting down tree-boles for a match against some
other mighty man; and all the while amidst the hurry, strokes of swords
and spears rained on him, some falling flatwise and some glancing
sideways, but some true and square, so that his helm was smitten off and
his hauberk rent adown, and point and edge reached his living flesh; and
he had thrust himself so far amidst the foe that none could follow to
shield him, so that at last he fell shattered and rent at the foot of the
new clayey wall cast up by the Romans, even as Thiodolf and a band with
him came cleaving the press, and the Romans closed the barriers against
friend and foe, and cast great beams adown, and masses of iron and lead
and copper taken from the smithying-booths of the Wolfings, to stay them
if it were but a little.
Then Thiodolf bestrode the fallen warrior, and men of his House were
close behind him, for wisely had he fought, cleaving the press like a
wedge, helping his friends that they might help him, so that they all
went forward together. But when he saw Arinbiorn fall he cried out:
"Woe's me, Arinbiorn! that thou wouldest not wait for me; for the day is
young yet, and over-young!"
There then they cleared the space outside the gate, and lifted up the
Bearing Warrior, and bare him back from the rampart. For so fierce had
been the fight and so eager the storm of those that had followed after
him that they must needs order their battle afresh, since Thiodolf's
wedge which he had driven into the Roman host was but of a few and the
foe had been many and the rampart and the shot-weapons were close anigh.
Wise therefore it seemed to abide them of the second battle and join with
them to swarm over the new-built slippery wall in the teeth of the Roman
shot.
In this, the first onset of the Morning Battle, some of the Markmen had
fallen, but not many, since but a few had entered outright into the Roman
ranks; and when they first rushed on from the wood but three of them were
slain, and the slaughter was all of the dastards and the Romans; and
afterwards not a few of the Romans were slain, what by Arinbiorn, what by
the others; for they were fighting fleeing, and before their eyes was the
image of the garth-gate which was behind them; and they stumbled against
each other as they were driven sideways against the onrush of the Goths,
nor were they now standing fair and square to them, and they were hurried
and confused with the dread of the onset of them of the two Marks.
As yet Thiodolf had gotten no great hurt, so that when he heard that
Arinbiorn's soul had passed away he smiled and said:
"Yea, yea, Arinbiorn might have abided the end, for ere then shall the
battle be hard."
So now the Wolfings and the Bearings met joyously the kindreds of the
Nether Mark and the others of the second battle, and they sang the song
of victory arrayed in good order hard by the Roman rampart, while
bowstrings twanged and arrows whistled, and sling-stones hummed from this
side and from that.
And of their song of victory thus much the tale telleth:
"Now hearken and hear
Of the day-dawn of fear,
And how up rose the sun
On the battle begun.
All night lay a-hiding,
Our anger abiding,
Dark down in the wood
The sharp seekers of blood;
But ere red grew the heaven we bore them all bare,
For against us undriven the foemen must fare;
They sought and they found us, and sorrowed to find,
For the tree-boles around us the story shall mind,
How fast from the glooming they fled to the light,
Yeasaying the dooming of Tyr of the fight.
"Hearken yet and again
How the night gan to wane,
And the twilight stole on
Till the world was well won!
E'en in such wise was wending
A great host for our ending;
On our life-days e'en so
Stole the host of the foe;
Till the heavens grew lighter, and light grew the world,
And the storm of the fighter upon them was hurled,
Then some fled the stroke, and some died and some stood,
Till the worst of the storm broke right out from the wood,
And the war-shafts were singing the carol of fear,
The tale of the bringing the sharp swords anear.
"Come gather we now,
For the day doth grow.
Come, gather, ye bold,
Lest the day wax old;
Lest not till to-morrow
We slake our sorrow,
And heap the ground
With many a mound.
Come, war-children, gather, and clear we the land!
In the tide of War-father the deed is to hand.
Clad in gear that we gilded they shrink from our sword;
In the House that we builded they sit at the board;
Come, war-children, gather, come swarm o'er the wall
For the feast of War-father to sweep out the Hall!"
Now amidst of their singing the sun rose upon the earth, and gleamed in
the arms of men, and lit the faces of the singing warriors as they stood
turned toward the east.
In this first onset of battle but twenty and three Markmen were slain in
all, besides Arinbiorn; for, as aforesaid, they had the foe at a
disadvantage. And this onset is called in the tale the Storm of Dawning.
CHAPTER XXI--OF THIODOLF'S STORM
The Goths tarried not over their victory; they shot with all the bowmen
that they had against the Romans on the wall, and therewith arrayed
themselves to fall on once more. And Thiodolf, now that the foe were
covered by a wall, though it was but a little one, sent a message to the
men of the third battle, them of Up-mark to wit, to come forward in good
array and help to make a ring around the Wolfing Stead, wherein they
should now take the Romans as a beast is taken in a trap. Meanwhile,