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But the Hall-Sun answered in the same steady manner as before: "None knoweth who is my mother, nor my very father's name; But when to the House of the Wolfings a wild-wood waif I came, They gave me a foster-mother an ancient dame and good, And a glorious foster-father the best of all the blood." Spake the Carline.
But when he was gone Thiodolf was alone in that place with the Hall-Sun, and he turned to her, and kissed her, and caressed her fondly, and spake and said: "So fare we, O my daughter, to the sundering of the ways; Short is my journey henceforth to the door that ends my days, And long the road that lieth as yet before thy feet.
They had been overthrown, not sorely maybe if they had been in an alien land, and free to come and go as they would; yet sorely as things were, because the foeman was sitting in their own House, and they must needs drag him out of it or perish: and to many the days seemed evil, and the Gods fighting against them, and both the Wolfings and the other kindreds bethought them of the Hall-Sun and her wisdom and longed to hear of tidings concerning her.
"But for the others, I sent one to go straight to Wolf-stead on the heels of the first messenger, to tell the Hall-Sun what had befallen, and other five I set to lurk in the thicket, whereas none could lightly lay hands on them, and when they had new tidings, to flee to Wolf-stead as occasion might serve them; and for myself I tarried not, but rode on the spur to tell thee hereof.
So they talked together and made each other good cheer, as is the wont of companions in arms on the eve of battle; and the talk ran, as may be deemed, on that journey and what was likely to come of it: and spake an Elking warrior to a Wolfing by whom he rode: "O Wolfkettle, hath the Hall-Sun had any foresight of the day of battle?"
But as she sat musing thus, came to her a woman exceeding old to look on, whom she knew not as one of the kindred or a thrall; and this carline greeted her by the name of Hall-Sun and said: "Hail, Hall-Sun of the Markmen! how fares it now with thee When the whelps of the Woodbeast wander with the Leafage of the Tree All up the Mirkwood-water to seek what they shall find, The oak-boles of the battle and the war-wood stark and blind?"
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.
But these stay-at-homes with the Hall-Sun were stayed by the command of Thiodolf on the crown of the slope above the dwellings, and stood round about the Speech-Hill, on the topmost of which stood the Hall-Sun, and the wondrous Lamp, and the men who warded her and it.
Said the lad; "My name is Ali the son of Grey, and I come with a message from the Hall-Sun and the stay-at-homes who are in the Woodland." Now when he named the Hall-Sun Thiodolf started and looked up, and turning to his left-hand said, "And what sayeth thy daughter?"
Therewith he ceased, and let his head fall again, and the Hall-Sun looked at him askance. But Arinbiorn clomb the Speech-Hill and said: "Men of the kindreds, it is now a few days since we first met the Romans and fought with them; and whiles we have had the better, and whiles the worse in our dealings, as oft in war befalleth: for they are men, and we no less than men.
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