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And then I must look at the queen, and I saw the most wonderfully beautiful lady who ever lived outside of a gleeman's tale, so that hardly could Guinevere herself, King Arthur's queen, have been more beautiful. She was tall and yet not thin, and her golden hair fell in two long plaits almost to the ground over her pale green dress.
War was the Englishman's "shield-play" and "sword-game"; the gleeman's verse took fresh fire as he sang of the rush of the host and the crash of its shield-line.
"Alfgar," said the gleeman, "you will find a quiver of arrows and a long bow at the bottom of the boat behind you." Alfgar handed them to him. "The points are passing sharp, and the bow is in order; take your turn to row." Alfgar obeyed; he could not do otherwise, the gleeman's tone of command was so powerful, but he feared they would loss time by the change.
It boots not to repeat an oft-told tale, to describe the banquet in all its prodigal luxury, to tell how light the casks in the cellars of Aescendune seemed afterwards, how empty the larder; suffice it to say that in due course the banquet was ended, the toasts were drunk, and, with an occasional interlude in the gleeman's song and the harper's wild music, the conversation was at its height.
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