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The carnage that is being done without calls thee. By now the council-chamber is shaken with warfare, and the gates creak with the dreadful fray. Steel rends the mail-coats, the woven mesh is torn apart, and the midriff gives under the rain of spears.
We hear nothing now of the white armour; it must have been dimmed and worn by much fighting, and the banner torn and glorious with the chances of the war; but it still waved over her head, and she still stood fast, on the ridge between the two ditches, shouting her summons, cheering the men, a spot of light still, amid all the steely glimmering of the mail-coats and the dark downpour of that iron rain.
As soon as it was morning Jaland mounted with two hundred and sixty-thousand fighting-men, clad cap-a-pie in hauberks and cuirasses and strait-knit mail-coats, the kettle-drums beat a point of war and all drew out for cut and thrust and fight and fray.
Let the Teuton swords, the helmets, the shining armlets, the mail-coats that reach the heel, which Rolf of old bestowed upon his men, let these sharpen our mindful hearts to the fray.
He made and mended the weapons used in the chase and in war the gavelocs, bills, and battle-axes; he tipped the bowmen's arrows, and furnished spear-heads for the men-at-arms; but, above all, he forged the mail-coats and cuirasses of the chiefs, and welded their swords, on the temper and quality of which, life, honour, and victory in battle depended.
Vigfusson has shown the importance of these painted shields in the poetic history of the Scandinavians. A red shield is a signal of peace. Shields are set round ramparts on land as round ships at sea. "Mail-coats" are worn. Frode has one charmed against steel. Hother has another; a mail-coat of proof is mentioned and their iron meshes are spoken of.
So they send for their friends, and array their horses, their helms, and their shields, and their byrnies, and all their war-gear; and their journey was furnished forth in the noblest wise, and no champion who was of the great men might abide at home; and their horses were clad in mail-coats, and every knight of them had his helm done over with gold or with silver.
So they drew their swords and made for Salih but he fled and for the palace gate sped; and reaching the entrance, he found of his cousins and kinsfolk and servants, more than a thousand horse armed cap-a- pie in iron and close knitted mail-coats, hending in hand spears and naked swords glittering white.
They continued for a century and a quarter longer. Through all this time the course of the nation's life was as we have described it: a raid from the sea, or from one of their seaboard fortresses by the Dark Gentiles or the Fair; an assembling of the hosts of the native chieftains against them; a fierce and spirited battle against the pirates in their mail-coats and armed with great battle-axes.
Out of one sack he would take two moultures or fees for grinding; would act the ass's part to get some bran, and of his fist would make a mallet. He took the cranes at the first leap, and would have the mail-coats to be made link after link. He always looked a given horse in the mouth, leaped from the cock to the ass, and put one ripe between two green.
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