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As to the Roof of the Wolfings, it was a great hall and goodly, after the fashion of their folk and their day; not built of stone and lime, but framed of the goodliest trees of the wild-wood squared with the adze, and betwixt the framing filled with clay wattled with reeds.
Said the Hall-Sun: "I waxed 'neath the Roof of the Wolfings, till now to look upon I was of sixteen winters, and the love of the Folk I won, And in lovely weed they clad me like the image of a God: And lonely now full often the wild-wood ways I trod, And I feared no wild-wood creature, and my presence scared them nought; And I fell to know of wisdom, and within me stirred my thought, So that oft anights would I wander through the mead and far away, And swim the Mirkwood-water, and amidst his eddies play When earth was dark in the dawn-tide; and over all the folk I knew of the beasts' desires, as though in words they spoke.
Then Thiodolf heeded nothing save the battle, but ran forward hastily, and those warriors followed him, the old man last of all holding the Hauberk in his hand, and muttering: "So fares hot blood to the glooming and the world beneath the grass; And the fruit of the Wolfings' orchard in a flash from the world must pass.
Before him on the board lay the great War-horn of the Wolfings carved out of the tusk of a sea-whale of the North and with many devices on it and the Wolf amidst them all; its golden mouth-piece and rim wrought finely with flowers. There it abode the blowing, until the spoken word of some messenger should set forth the tidings borne on the air by the horn of the Elkings.
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.
Then forth goes the cry of triumph, as they ring the captives round And cheat the crow of her portion and heap the warriors' mound. There are faces gone from our feast-hall not the least beloved nor worst, But the wane of the House of the Wolfings not yet the world hath cursed. The sun shall rise to-morrow on our cold and dewy roof, For they that longed for slaughter were slaughtered far aloof."
His hands strayed over her shoulders and arms, caressing them, and he said softly and lovingly: "I am Thiodolf the Mighty: but as wise as I may be No story of that grave-night mine eyes can ever see, But rather the tale of the Wolfings through the coming days of earth, And the young men in their triumph and the maidens in their mirth; And morn's promise every evening, and each day the promised morn, And I amidst it ever reborn and yet reborn.
They stand by the tofts of a war-garth, a captain of the foe, And a man that is of the Goth-folk, and as friend and friend they speak, But I hear no word they are saying, though for every word I seek. And now the mist flows round me and blind I come aback To the House-roof of the Wolfings and the hearth that hath no lack."
Now the name of this House was the Wolfings, and they bore a Wolf on their banners, and their warriors were marked on the breast with the image of the Wolf, that they might be known for what they were if they fell in battle, and were stripped.
This House of the Wolfings is the door to the treasure chamber of the Markmen; let us fall on that at once rather than have many battles for other lesser matters, and then at last have to fight for this also: for having this we have all, and they shall be our thralls, and we may slaughter what we will, and torment what we will and deflower what we will, and make our souls glad with their grief and anguish, and take aback with us to the cities what we will of the thralls, that their anguish and our joy may endure the longer. Thus will they say: therefore is it my rede that the strongest and hardiest of you women take horse, a ten of you and one to lead besides, and ride the shallows to the Bearing House, and tell them of our rede; which is to watch diligently the ways of the wood; the outgate to the Mark, and the places where the wood is thin and easy to travel on: and ye shall bid them give you of their folk as many as they deem fittest thereto to join your company, so that ye may have a chain of watchers stretching far into the wilds; but two shall lie without the wood, their horses ready for them to leap on and ride on the spur to the wain-burg in the Upper-mark if any tidings befal.
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