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But Redwald had taken up the conversation. "These halls of yours seem old, venerable thane; has your family long dwelt under this hospitable roof?" "My remote ancestor fought by the side of Cynric in the victories which led to the foundation of Mercia." "Ah! many a sad yet glorious tale and legend for the gleeman's harp, doubtless, adorns your annals." "Not many; we have our traditions."
"Alas! there is; but it is one whose stain is all too recent, one we cannot recount, or suffer gleeman's harp to set to music, lest we harrow the yet bleeding wound." Redwald could not ask more; the answer was too plain and distinct, and so he was forced to repress his curiosity.
But one knows how to sift the words of the gleeman's song, and they told me at least that Owen had been a great champion ere he left his home. Still, I missed the bright fire on the hearth, and the ways of the court were too stately for me here.
The gentle wife o'er paths of the deep to the Danes they bore, led to her land. The lay was finished, the gleeman's song. Then glad rose the revel; bench-joy brightened. Bearers draw from their "wonder-vats" wine. Comes Wealhtheow forth, under gold-crown goes where the good pair sit, uncle and nephew, true each to the other one, kindred in amity.
It was a long time before either of us was composed enough to say much, but when we had a little recovered, the abbot who had brought them to my rooms introduced a tall young man in gleeman's garb, as Edmund the Etheling. At length we all sat down to supper, but talked so much we could eat little, and I soon learned all the news Alfgar had to tell.
"We are aweary now, and would fain return to our comrades on the shore, but we will return by and by." "Do so, here is thy reward;" and one of the speakers threw a gold chain round the gleeman's neck. Gold was plentiful with the robbers. They were allowed to return to their boat; but as they did so, many a keen eye was fixed upon them.
Such proof of his skill gave the fiddler that Siegstab died. Hildebrand avenged him as beseemed his might. "Woe is me for my dear lord, that lieth slain by Folker's hand! Bitterly shall the fiddler pay for it." Certes, Hildebrand was grim enow. He smote Folker, that the gleeman's shield and helmet flew in splinters across the hall. That was an end of stark Folker.
The fifth was at the fearful gleeman's mercy, but he restrained himself, now danger had vanished. But as he did so he cried aloud: "Dane, we give thee thy life, blood sucker though thou art. One of the central lights of civilisation and Christianity in the early days of Wessex was the monastery of Abingdon. St.
"The gleeman! the false gleeman the Etheling Edmund!" in various energetic cries, attested his fame, and the hatred of his foes. "Yes, dogs, ye know me, and the prize ye have to win. Back, drunkards and cannibals, back to your royal parricide with the gleeman's greetings, and tell him Hela is waiting for him and his friend the accursed Edric."
Here again were memorials, dear to the vanquished Welsh; for did not Arthur, the great King Arthur, the hero of a thousand fights, the subject of gleeman's melody and of the minstrel's praise, lie buried here? if indeed he were dead, and not spirited away by magic power.
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