The House of the Wolfings
fair was his array to look on; for point and edge had rent it and stained
it red, and the flaring of the hall-flames had blackened it; his face was
streaked with black withal, and his hands were as the hands of a smith
among the thralls who hath wrought unwashen in the haste and hurry when
men look to see the war-arrow abroad. But he went up on to the dais and
held up his head proudly, and looked forth on to the hall-crowd with eyes
that gleamed fiercely from his stained and blackened face.
Again the Hall-Sun said: "Art thou also alive, O Egil the messenger?
Swift are thy feet, but not to flee from the foe: Come up and stand with
us!"
Therewith Egil clave the throng; he was not so roughly dealt with as was
Wolfkettle, for he was a bowman, and had this while past shot down on the
Romans from aloof; and he yet held his bended bow in his hand. He also
came up on to the dais and stood beside Wolfkettle glancing down on the
hall-crowd, looking eagerly from side to side.
Yet again the Hall-Sun spake: "No aliens now are dwelling in the Mark;
come hither, ye men of the kindreds! Come thou, our brother Hiarandi of
the Elkings, for thy sisters, our wives, are fain of thee. Come thou,
Valtyr of the Laxings, brother's son of Otter; do thou for the War-duke
what thy father's brother had done, had he not been faring afar. Come
thou, Geirbald of the Shieldings the messenger! Now know we the deeds of
others and thy deeds. Come, stand beside us for a little!"
Forth then they came in their rent and battered war-gear: and the tall
Hiarandi bore but the broken truncheon of his sword; and Valtyr a
woodman's axe notched and dull with work; and Geirbald a Roman
cast-spear, for his own weapons had been broken in the medley; and he
came the last of the three, going as a belated reaper from the acres.
There they stood by the others and gazed adown the hall-throng.
But the Hall-Sun spake again: "Agni of the Daylings, I see thee now. How
camest thou into the hard handplay, old man? Come hither and stand with
us, for we love thee. Angantyr of the Bearings, fair was thy riding on
the day of the Battle on the Ridge! Come thou, be with us. Shall the
Beamings whose daughters we marry fail the House of the Wolf to-day?
Geirodd, thou hast no longer a weapon, but the fight is over, and this
hour thou needest it not. Come to us, brother! Gunbald of the Vallings,
the Falcon on thy shield is dim with the dint of point and edge, but it
hath done its work to ward thy valiant heart: Come hither, friend! Come
all ye and stand with us!"
As she named them so they came, and they went up on to the dais and stood
altogether; and a terrible band of warriors they looked had the fight
been to begin over again, and they to meet death once more. And again
spake the Hall-Sun:
"Steinulf and Grani, deft are your hands! Take ye the stalks of the war
blossoms, the spears of the kindreds, and knit them together to make a
bier for our War-duke, for he is weary and may not go afoot. Thou Ali,
son of Grey; thou hast gone errands for me before; go forth now from the
garth, and wend thy ways toward the water, and tell me when thou comest
back what thou hast seen of the coming of the wain-burg. For by this
time it should be drawing anigh."
So Ali went forth, and there was silence of words for a while in the
Hall; but there arose the sound of the wood-wrights busy with the wimble
and the hammer about the bier. No long space had gone by when Ali came
back into the hall panting with his swift running; and he cried out:
"O Hall-Sun, they are coming; the last wain hath crossed the ford, and
the first is hard at hand: bright are their banners in the sun."
Then said the Hall-Sun: "O warriors, it is fitting that we go to meet our
banners returning from the field, and that we do the Gods to wit what
deeds we have done; fitting is it also that Thiodolf our War-duke wend
with us. Now get ye into your ordered bands, and go we forth from the
fire-scorched hall, and out into the sunlight, that the very earth and
the heavens may look upon the face of our War-duke, and bear witness that
he hath played his part as a man."
Then without more words the folk began to stream out of the Hall, and
within the garth which the Romans had made they arrayed their companies.
But when they were all gone from the Hall save they who were on the dais,
the Hall-Sun took the waxen torch which she had litten and quenched at
the departure of the host to battle, and now she once more kindled it at
the flame of the wondrous Lamp, the Hall-Sun. But the wood-wrights
brought the bier which they had made of the spear-shafts of the kindred,
and they laid thereon a purple cloak gold-embroidered of the treasure of
the Wolfings, and thereon was Thiodolf laid.
Then those men took him up; to wit, Sorli the Old, and Wolfkettle and
Egil, all these were of the Wolfing House; Hiarandi of the Elkings also,
and Valtyr of the Laxings, Geirbald of the Shieldings, Agni of the
Daylings, Angantyr of the Bearings, Geirodd of the Beamings, Gunbald of
the Vallings: all these, with the two valiant wood-wrights, Steinulf and
Grani, laid hand to the bier.
So they bore it down from the dais, and out at the Man's-door into the
sunlight, and the Hall-Sun followed close after it, holding in her hand
the Candle of Returning. It was an hour after high-noon of a bright
midsummer day when she came out into the garth; and the smoke from the
fire-scorched hall yet hung about the trees of the wood-edge. She looked
neither down towards her feet nor on the right side or the left, but
straight before her. The ordered companies of the kindreds hid the sight
of many fearful things from her eyes; though indeed the thralls and women
had mostly gleaned the dead from the living both of friend and foe, and
were tending the hurt of either host. Through an opening in the ranks
moreover could they by the bier behold the scanty band of Roman captives,
some standing up, looking dully around them, some sitting or lying on the
grass talking quietly together, and it seemed by their faces that for
them the bitterness of death was passed.
Forth then fared the host by the West gate, where Thiodolf had done so
valiantly that day, and out on to the green amidst the booths and lesser
dwellings. Sore then was the heart of the Hall-Sun, as she looked forth
over dwelling, and acre, and meadow, and the blue line of the woods
beyond the water, and bethought her of all the familiar things that were
within the compass of her eyesight, and remembered the many days of her
father's loving-kindness, and the fair words wherewith he had solaced her
life-days. But of the sorrow that wrung her heart nothing showed in her
face, nor was she paler now than her wont was. For high was her courage,
and she would in no wise mar that fair day and victory of the kindreds
with grief for what was gone, whereas so much of what once was, yet
abided and should abide for ever.
Then fared they down through the acres, where what was yet left of the
wheat was yellowing toward harvest, and the rye hung grey and heavy; for
bright and hot had the weather been all through these tidings. Howbeit
much of the corn was spoiled by the trampling of the Roman bands.
So came they into the fair open meadow and saw before them the wains
coming to meet them with their folk; to wit a throng of stout carles of
the thrall-folk led by the war-wise and ripe men of the Steerings. Bright
was the gleaming of the banner-wains, though for the lack of wind the
banners hung down about their staves; the sound of the lowing of the
bulls and the oxen, the neighing of horses and bleating of the flocks
came up to the ears of the host as they wended over the meadow.
They made stay at last on the rising ground, all trampled and in parts
bloody, where yesterday Thiodolf had come on the fight between the
remnant of Otter's men and the Romans: there they opened their ranks, and
made a ring round about a space, amidmost of which was a little mound
whereon was set the bier of Thiodolf. The wains and their warders came
up with them and drew a garth of the wains round about the ring of men
with the banners of the kindreds in their due places.
There was the Wolf and the Elk, the Falcon, the Swan, the Boar, the Bear,
and the Green-tree: the Willow-bush, the Gedd, the Water-bank and the
Wood-Ousel, the Steer, the Mallard and the Roe-deer: all these were of
the Mid-mark. But of the Upper-mark were the Horse and the Spear, and
the Shield, and the Daybreak, and the Dale, and the Mountain, and the
Brook, and the Weasel, and the Cloud, and the Hart.
Of the Nether-mark were the Salmon, and the Lynx, and the Ling worm, the
Seal, the Stone, and the Sea-mew; the Buck-goat, the Apple-tree, the
Bull, the Adder, and the Crane.
There they stood in the hot sunshine three hours after noon; and a little
wind came out of the west and raised the pictured cloths upon the banner-
staves, so that the men could now see the images of the tokens of their
Houses and the Fathers of old time.
Now was there silence in the ring of men; but it opened presently and
through it came all-armed warriors bearing another bier, and lo, Otter
upon it, dead in his war-gear with many a grievous wound upon his body.
For men had found him in an ingle of the wall of the Great Roof, where he
had been laid yesterday by the Romans when his company and the Bearings
with the Wormings made their onset: for the Romans had noted his
exceeding valour, and when they had driven off the Goths some of them
brought him dead inside their garth, for they would know the name and
dignity of so valorous a man.
So now they bore him to the mound where Thiodolf lay and set the bier
down beside Thiodolf's, and the two War-dukes of the Markmen lay there
together: and when the warriors beheld that sight, they could not
forbear, but some groaned aloud, and some wept great tears, and they
clashed their swords on their shields and the sound of their sorrow and
their praise went up to the summer heavens.
Now the Hall-Sun holding aloft the waxen torch lifted up her voice and
said:
"O warriors of the Wolfings, by the token of the flame
That here in my right hand flickers, ye are back at the House of the
Name,
And there yet burneth the Hall-Sun beneath the Wolfing Roof,
And the flame that the foemen quickened hath died out far aloof.
Ye gleanings of the battle, lift up your hearts on high,
For the House of the War-wise Wolfings and the Folk undoomed to die.
But ye kindreds of the Markmen, the Wolfing guests are ye,
And to-night we hold the high-tide, and great shall the feasting be,
For to-day by the road that we know not a many wend their ways
To the Gods and the ancient Fathers, and the hope of the latter days.
And how shall their feet be cumbered if we tangle them with woe,
And the heavy rain of sorrow drift o'er the road they go?
They have toiled, and their toil was troublous to make the days to
come;
Use ye their gifts in gladness, lest they grieve for the Ancient Home!
Now are our maids arraying that fire-scorched Hall of ours
With the treasure of the Wolfings and the wealth of summer flowers,
And this eve the work before you will be the Hall to throng
And purge its walls of sorrow and quench its scathe and wrong."
She looked on the dead Thiodolf a moment, and then glanced from him to
Otter and spake again:
"O kindreds, here before you two mighty bodies lie;
Henceforth no man shall see them in house and field go by
As we were used to behold them, familiar to us then
As the wind beneath the heavens and the sun that shines on men;
Now soon shall there be nothing of their dwelling-place to tell,