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He started, and his face reddened as he answered: "O Wood-Sun thou wottest our battle and the way wherein we fare: That oft at the battle's beginning the helm and the hauberk we bear; Lest the shaft of the fleeing coward or the bow at adventure bent Should slay us ere the need be, ere our might be given and spent.
But she looked so fair and lovely even in that end of the night- tide, that he remembered all her beauty of the day and the sunshine, and he laughed aloud for joy of the sight of her, and said: "What aileth thee, O Wood-Sun, and is this a new custom of thy kindred and the folk of God-home that their brides array themselves like thralls new-taken, and as women who have lost their kindred and are outcast?
When he awoke again, it was yet night, but the moon was getting lower and the first beginnings of dawn were showing in the sky over the ridge; he lay still a moment gathering his thoughts and striving to remember where he was, as is the wont of men waking from deep sleep; then he leapt to his feet, and lo, he was face to face with a woman, and she who but the Wood-Sun? and he wondered not, but reached out his hand to touch her, though he had not yet wholly cast off the heaviness of slumber or remembered the tidings of yesterday.
Then he took up the hauberk from the grass whereas the Wood-Sun had cast it, and did it on him, as it were of the attire he was wont to carry daily. So he girt Throng-plough to him, and went soberly up to the ridge-top to the folk, who were just stirring in the early morning.
At last the Wood-Sun spoke and said: "Thou sayest sooth, O daughter: I am no God of might, Yet I am of their race, and I think with their thoughts and see with their sight, And the threat of the doom did I know of, and yet spared not to lie: For I thought that the fate foreboded might touch and pass us by, As the sword that heweth the war-helm and cleaveth a cantle away, And the cunning smith shall mend it and it goeth again to the fray; If my hand might have held for a moment, yea, even against his will, The life of my beloved!
And indeed it was the Wood-Sun in the semblance of a crone, who had come to gather wisdom of the coming time from the foreseeing of the Hall-Sun; since now at last she herself foresaw nothing of it, though she was of the kindred of the Gods and the Fathers of the Goths.
So came they to that little wood-lawn where first in this tale Thiodolf met the Wood-Sun; and the stone seat there was not empty now any more than it was then; for thereon sat the Wood-Sun, clad once more in her glittering raiment. Her head was sunken down, her face hidden by her hands; neither did she look up when she heard their feet on the grass, for she knew who they were.
Ere she had ended, the Wood-Sun let her hands fall down, and showed her face, which for all its unpaled beauty looked wearied and anxious; and she took Thiodolf's hand in hers, while she looked with eyes of love upon the Hall-Sun, and Thiodolf laid his cheek to her cheek, and though he smiled not, yet he seemed as one who is happy.
Then she arose when she had kissed her mother once more, and went her ways from that wood-lawn into the woods again, and so to the Folk-mote of her people. But when those twain were all alone again, the Wood-Sun spoke: "O Thiodolf canst thou hear me and understand?" "Yea," he said, "when thou speakest of certain matters, as of our love together, and of our daughter that came of our love."
But Thiodolf said: "O Wood-Sun, this thou hast a right to ask of me, why I have not worn in the battle thy gift, the Treasure of the World, the Dwarf-wrought Hauberk! And what is this that thou sayest?
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