On the day after the wedding, however, Halfred rode alone into the pine
wood. He said he wished to think, and he refused Harthild, who would
have ridden with him, and also his blood brethren.
Darkly Harthild looked after him as he rode out of the court. But
Sudha, the beautiful daughter of the King of Halogaland, also looked
after him from an overhanging window, and slowly stroked her blue black
hair back from her temples.
Vandrad the Skald, however, who often staid at Hartstein's Court, and
who was there at that time, had long cherished love for Sudha. And he
had often begged her freedom from King Hartstein, but in vain; the
stern man had always denied him.
And heretofore she had not listened unwillingly when he sang. But when
in these days he drew near to her, and spoke of a song which he had
composed in her praise, she turned away and said--"On the lips of one
only have the gods laid honey."
And when in the evening Halfred returned from the pinewood towards the
royal castle, he was leading his weary horse by the bridle, for the
moon shone but fitfully through storm-rent clouds, there sat upon the
runic-stone hard by the road a closely veiled woman, and she cried to
him and said--
"Halfred Hamundson, whereof on the first day of thy marriage, ridest
thou alone in the pinewood?"
"If thou knowest that, O wise Vala," said Halfred, pausing--and he
heaved a sigh--"then knowest thou more than Halfred Hamundson."
"I will tell thee," replied the veiled one. "Thou hast sought a woman,
and found what is nigher to a man, rough, harsh, and devoid of charm.
The Singing Swan hath paired thee with the vulture's brood. Thou
chosest the hard flint stone, near to it lay glowing at thy feet the
rose, exhaling fragrance towards thee."
Then Halfred sprang upon his horse, and cried to the veiled one--
"Nobler hold I it in a woman to be too cold, than too ardent." And he
dashed away.
And only once, as he told me, he looked back. So beautiful, he said,
had she never before been, in the full light of day, as now in the
moonlight, her black eyes glittered--for she had torn off her head
covering--and she called after him by his name, "Halfred," and her
blue-black hair fluttered round her in the night wind like a ghostly
veil.