The House of the Wolfings
moon rose and the summer night wore on towards dawn, and within the Roof
and without was there feasting and singing and harping and the voice of
abundant joyance: for without the Roof feasted the thralls and the
strangers, and the Roman war-captives.
But on the morrow the kindreds laid their dead men in mound betwixt the
Great Roof and the Wild-wood. In one mound they laid them with the War-
dukes in their midst, and Arinbiorn by Otter's right side; and Thiodolf
bore Throng-plough to mound with him.
But a little way from the mound of their own dead, toward the south they
laid the Romans, a great company, with their Captain in the midst: and
they heaped a long mound over them not right high; so that as years wore,
and the feet of men and beasts trod it down, it seemed a mere swelling of
the earth not made by men's hands; and belike men knew not how many bones
of valiant men lay beneath; yet it had a name which endured for long, to
wit, the Battle-toft.
But the mound whereunder the Markmen were laid was called Thiodolf's Howe
for many generations of men, and many are the tales told of him; for men
were loth to lose him and forget him: and in the latter days men deemed
of him that he sits in that Howe not dead but sleeping, with
Throng-plough laid before him on the board; and that when the sons of the
Goths are at their sorest need and the falcons cease to sit on the ridge
of the Great Roof of the Wolfings, he will wake and come forth from the
Howe for their helping. But none have dared to break open that Howe and
behold what is therein.
But that swelling of the meadow where the Goths had their overthrow at
the hands of the Romans, and Thiodolf fell to earth unwounded, got a name
also, and was called the Swooning Knowe; and it kept that name long after
men had forgotten wherefore it was so called.
Now when all this was done, and the warriors of the kindreds were
departed each to his own stead, the Wolfings gathered in wheat-harvest,
and set themselves to make good all that the Romans had undone; and they
cleansed and mended their Great Roof and made it fairer than before, and
took from it all signs of the burning, save that they left the charring
and marks of the flames on one tie-beam, the second from the dais, for a
token of the past tidings. Also when Harvest was over the Wolfings, the
Beamings, the Galtings, and the Elkings, set to work with the Bearings to
rebuild their Great Roof and the other dwellings and booths which the
Romans had burned; and right fair was that house.
But the Wolfings throve in field and fold, and they begat children who
grew up to be mighty men and deft of hand, and the House grew more
glorious year by year.
The tale tells not that the Romans ever fell on the Mark again; for about
this time they began to stay the spreading of their dominion, or even to
draw in its boundaries somewhat.
AND THIS IS ALL THAT THE TALE HAS TO TELL CONCERNING THE HOUSE OF THE
WOLFINGS AND THE KINDREDS OF THE MARK.
FOOTNOTES
{1} Welsh with these men means Foreign, and is used for all people of
Europe who are not of Gothic or Teutonic blood.
{2} i.e. Foreigners: see note {1}