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Ah for the ordered wisdom of the war-array of these, And the folks that are sitting about them in dumb down-trodden peace! So I thought now fareth war-ward my well-beloved friend, And the weird of the Gods hath doomed it that no more with him may I wend! Woe's me for the war of the Wolfings wherefrom I am sundered apart, And the fruitless death of the war-wise, and the doom of the hardy heart!"
How fain were I that thy journey from day to day were sweet With peace to thee and pleasure; that a noble warrior's hand In its early days might lead thee adown the flowery land, And thy children in its noon-tide cling round about thy gown, And the wise that thy womb has carried when the sun is going down, Be thy happy fellow-farers to tell the tale of Earth, But I wot that for no such sweetness did we bring thee unto birth, But to be the soul of the Wolfings till the other days should come, And the fruit of the kindreds' harvest with thee is garnered home.
Then I saw myself draw nigh To sing the song blood-staying. Then saw I how we twain Went 'midst of the host triumphant in the Wolfings' banner-wain, The black bulls lowing before us athwart the warriors' song, As up from Mirkwood-water we went our ways along To the Great Roof of the Wolfings, whence streamed the women out And the sound of their rejoicing blent with the warriors' shout.
Straightway she made the Lamp fast to its chain, and dealt with its pulleys with a deft hand often practised therein, and then let it run up toward the smoke-hidden Roof till it gleamed in its due place once more, a token of the salvation of the Wolfings and the welfare of all the kindreds.
Thou weepest bitter tears before thou goest to sleep, gold-decked, sunbright, Southern maid; each one falls on my breast, bloody, cold and wet, cruel, heavy with grief...." Sigrun. "I have made thee here a painless bed, Helgi, son of the Wolfings. I will sleep in thy arms, my warrior, as if thou wert alive." Helgi.
And by the sword I swear it, and by the Holy Earth, To live for the House of the Wolfings, and at last to die for their need. For though I trow thy saying that I am not one of their seed, Nor yet by the hand have been taken and unto the Father shown As a very son of the Fathers, yet mid them hath my body grown; And I am the guest of their Folk-Hall, and each one there is my friend.
The Carline gazed at her with dark eyes that shone brightly from amidst her brown wrinkled face: then she sat herself down beside her and spake: "From a far folk have I wandered and I come of an alien blood, But I know all tales of the Wolfings and their evil and their good; And when I heard of thy fairness, thereof I heard it said, That for thee should be never a bridal nor a place in the warrior's bed."
Such imaginations of trouble then were in the hearts of the stay-at-homes of the Wolfings; the tale tells not indeed that all had such forebodings, but chiefly the old folk who were nursing the end of their life-days amidst the cherishing Kindred of the House.
Far fairer the fields of the morning than I had known them erst, And the acres where I wended, and the corn with its half-slaked thirst; And the noble Roof of the Wolfings, and the hawks that sat thereon; And the bodies of my kindred whose deliverance I had won; And the glimmering of the Hall-Sun in the dusky house of old; And my name in the mouth of the maidens, and the praises of the bold, As I sat in my battle-raiment, and the ruddy spear well steeled Leaned 'gainst my side war-battered, and the wounds thine hand had healed.
Then fell the Hall-Sun utterly silent, and the lids closed over her eyes, and her hands were clenched, and her feet pressed hard on the daisies: her bosom heaved with sore sighs, and great tear-drops oozed from under her eyelids and fell on to her raiment and her feet and on to the flowery summer grass; and at the last her mouth opened and she spake, but in a voice that was marvellously changed from that she spake in before: "Why went ye forth, O Wolfings, from the garth your fathers built, And the House where sorrow dieth, and all unloosed is guilt?
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