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"You remember in the old times, Imp, when knights rode out to battle, it was customary for them when they made a solemn promise to kiss the cross-hilt of their swords, just to show they meant to keep it.
Olaf, with his victorious, dazzling, cross-hilt sword, "turned to stock and stone." That which can so easily be put aside as superstition, when one is sitting safely in the middle of civilisation and yet still lives as a natural power in the people is represented, on the whole, in pigmy proportions in the south.
He instantly sank forward on his saddle-bow, exclaiming in a faint voice, "Great God! I am killed." His squire helped him from his horse, and he was laid beneath a tree. His spine was broken in two places; and he felt within himself that he was dying. He took his sword, and kissed the cross-hilt, murmuring aloud the Latin prayer, "Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam."
She listened like a maiden turned to snow. Then when he was silent she spoke thus to him: "Will you go with me and my ladies to the Tree in the Dark Wood this very night? If you can behold the Tree filled with fruit and rosy flame I will marry you, if not I cannot be your bride. But you must promise me upon the cross-hilt of your sword that you will speak truthfully.
The Vidame's hand flashed up above the priest's head, and the cross-hilt of his sheathed sword crashed down with awful force, and still more awful passion, on the other's tonsure! The wretch went down like a log, without a word, without a cry! Amid a roar of rage from a thousand throats, a roar that might have shaken the stoutest heart, and blanched the swarthiest cheek, Bezers disappeared within!
He walked with slow strides, his bright eyes seeming to cut a way for him, his long mantle trailing, his soft red leather boots pushed down in close creases about his ankles, his gloved hand pressing down the cross-hilt of his sword, so that the sheath lifted his mantle behind him.
"We will take no advantage of each other, who wish to fight this quarrel out with our own right arms." "So be it," said Peter, "and Master Castell here is the witness to our bargain." D'Aguilar nodded, kissed the cross-hilt of his sword in confirmation of the pact, bowed courteously, and put himself on his defence.
Again Gilbert's face lightened, for he knew the danger and the honour. "I will do it faithfully, so help me God." Then he would have risen, but the Queen spoke again. "Lady Anne," she said, "give me the sword of Aquitaine." Anne of Auch brought the great blade, in its velvet scabbard, with its cross-hilt bound with twisted wire of gold for the old Duke's grip.
The sword is sharpened to the finest degree, and the blade is protected for about six inches above the cross-hilt with thick string, bound tightly round so as to afford a grip for the right hand, while the left grips the hilt in the usual manner. This converts the ordinary blade into a two-handed sword, a blow from which will sever a naked man into two halves if delivered at the waist.
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