Now when Thiodolf came back to the habitations of the kindred the whole
House was astir, both thrall-men and women, and free women hurrying from
cot to stithy, and from stithy to hall bearing the last of the war-gear
or raiment for the fighting-men. But they for their part were some
standing about anigh the Man's-door, some sitting gravely within the
hall, some watching the hurry of the thralls and women from the midmost
of the open space amidst of the habitations, whereon there stood yet
certain wains which were belated: for the most of the wains were now
standing with the oxen already yoked to them down in the meadow past the
acres, encircled by a confused throng of kine and horses and thrall-folk,
for thither had all the beasts for the slaughter, and the horses for the
warriors been brought; and there were the horses tethered or held by the
thralls; some indeed were already saddled and bridled, and on others were
the thralls doing the harness.
But as for the wains of the Markmen, they were stoutly framed of ash-tree
with panels of aspen, and they were broad-wheeled so that they might go
over rough and smooth. They had high tilts over them well framed of
willow-poles covered over with squares of black felt over-lapping like
shingles; which felt they made of the rough of their fleeces, for they
had many sheep. And these wains were to them for houses upon the way if
need were, and therein as now were stored their meal and their war-store
and after fight they would flit their wounded men in them, such as were
too sorely hurt to back a horse: nor must it be hidden that whiles they
looked to bring back with them the treasure of the south. Moreover the
folk if they were worsted in any battle, instead of fleeing without more
done, would often draw back fighting into a garth made by these wains,
and guarded by some of their thralls; and there would abide the onset of
those who had thrust them back in the field. And this garth they called
the Wain-burg.
So now stood three of these wains aforesaid belated amidst of the
habitations of the House, their yoke-beasts standing or lying down
unharnessed as yet to them: but in the very midst of that place was a
wain unlike to them; smaller than they but higher; square of shape as to
the floor of it; built lighter than they, yet far stronger; as the
warrior is stronger than the big carle and trencher-licker that loiters
about the hall; and from the midst of this wain arose a mast made of a
tall straight fir-tree, and thereon hung the banner of the Wolfings,
wherein was wrought the image of the Wolf, but red of hue as a token of
war, and with his mouth open and gaping upon the foemen. Also whereas
the other wains were drawn by mere oxen, and those of divers colours, as
chance would have it, the wain of the banner was drawn by ten black bulls
of the mightiest of the herd, deep-dewlapped, high-crested and
curly-browed; and their harness was decked with gold, and so was the wain
itself, and the woodwork of it painted red with vermilion. There then
stood the Banner of the House of the Wolfings awaiting the departure of
the warriors to the hosting.
So Thiodolf stood on the top of the bent beside that same mound wherefrom
he had blown the War-horn yester-eve, and which was called the Hill of
Speech, and he shaded his eyes with his hand and looked around him; and
even therewith the carles fell to yoking the beasts to the belated wains,
and the warriors gathered together from out of the mixed throngs, and
came from the Roof and the Man's-door and all set their faces toward the
Hill of Speech.
So Thiodolf knew that all was ready for departure, and it wanted but an
hour of high-noon; so he turned about and went into the Hall, and there
found his shield and his spear hanging in his sleeping place beside the
hauberk he was wont to wear; then he looked, as one striving with
thought, at his empty hauberk and his own body covered with the dwarf-
wrought rings; nor did his face change as he took his shield and his
spear and turned away. Then he went to the dais and there sat his foster-
daughter (as men deemed her) sitting amidst of it as yester-eve, and now
arrayed in a garment of fine white wool, on the breast whereof were
wrought in gold two beasts ramping up against a fire-altar whereon a
flame flickered; and on the skirts and the hems were other devices, of
wolves chasing deer, and men shooting with the bow; and that garment was
an ancient treasure; but she had a broad girdle of gold and gems about
her middle, and on her arms and neck she wore great gold rings wrought
delicately. By then there were few save the Hall-Sun under the Roof, and
they but the oldest of the women, or a few very old men, and some who
were ailing and might not go abroad. But before her on the thwart table
lay the Great War-horn awaiting the coming of Thiodolf to give signal of
departure.
Then went Thiodolf to the Hall-Sun and kissed and embraced her fondly,
and she gave the horn into his hands, and he went forth and up on to the
Hill of Speech, and blew thence a short blast on the horn, and then came
all the Warriors flocking to the Hill of Speech, each man stark in his
harness, alert and joyous.
Then presently through the Man's-door came the Hall-Sun in that ancient
garment, which fell straight and stiff down to her ancles as she stepped
lightly and slowly along, her head crowned with a garland of eglantine.
In her right hand also she held a great torch of wax lighted, whose flame
amidst the bright sunlight looked like a wavering leaf of vermilion.
The warriors saw her, and made a lane for her, and she made her way
through it up to the Hill of Speech, and she went up to the top of it and
stood there holding the lighted candle in her hand, so that all might see
it. Then suddenly was there as great a silence as there may be on a
forenoon of summer; for even the thralls down in the meadow had noted
what was toward, and ceased their talking and shouting, for as far off as
they were, since they could see that the Hall-Sun stood on the Hill of
Speech, for the wood was dark behind her; so they knew the Farewell Flame
was lighted, and that the maiden would speak; and to all men her speech
was a boding of good or of ill.
So she began in a sweet voice yet clear and far-reaching:
"O Warriors of the Wolfings by the token of the flame
That here in my right hand flickers, come aback to the House of the
Name!
For there yet burneth the Hall-Sun beneath the Wolfing roof,
And this flame is litten from it, nor as now shall it fare aloof
Till again it seeth the mighty and the men to be gleaned from the
fight.
So wend ye as weird willeth and let your hearts be light;
For through your days of battle all the deeds of our days shall be
fair.
To-morrow beginneth the haysel, as if every carle were here;
And who knoweth ere your returning but the hook shall smite the corn?
But the kine shall go down to the meadow as their wont is every morn,
And each eve shall come back to the byre; and the mares and foals
afield
Shall ever be heeded duly; and all things shall their increase yield.
And if it shall befal us that hither cometh a foe
Here have we swains of the shepherds good players with the bow,
And old men battle-crafty whose might is nowise spent,
And women fell and fearless well wont to tread the bent
Amid the sheep and the oxen; and their hands are hard with the spear
And their arms are strong and stalwart the battle shield to bear;
And store of weapons have we and the mighty walls of the stead;
And the Roof shall abide you steadfast with the Hall-Sun overhead.
Lo here I quench this candle that is lit from the Hall-Sun's flame
Which unto the Wild-wood clearing with the kin of the Wolfings came
And shall wend with their departure to the limits of the earth;
Nor again shall the torch be lighted till in sorrow or in mirth,
Overthrown or overthrowing, ye come aback once more,
And bid me bear the candle before the Wolf of War."
As she spake the word she turned the candle downward, and thrust it
against the grass and quenched it indeed; but the whole throng of
warriors turned about, for the bulls of the banner-wain lowered their
heads in the yokes and began to draw, lowing mightily; and the wain
creaked and moved on, and all the men-at-arms followed after, and down
they went through the lanes of the corn, and a many women and children
and old men went down into the mead with them.
In their hearts they all wondered what the Hall-Sun's words might
signify; for she had told them nought about the battles to be, saving
that some should come back to the Mid-mark; whereas aforetime somewhat
would she foretell to them concerning the fortune of the fight, and now
had she said to them nothing but what their own hearts told them.
Nevertheless they bore their crests high as they followed the Wolf down
into the meadow, where all was now ready for departure. There they
arrayed themselves and went down to the lip of Mirkwood-water; and such
was their array that the banner went first, save that a band of fully
armed men went before it; and behind it and about were the others as well
arrayed as they. Then went the wains that bore their munition, with
armed carles of the thrall-folk about them, who were ever the guard of
the wains, and should never leave them night or day; and lastly went the
great band of the warriors and the rest of the thralls with them.
As to their war-gear, all the freemen had helms of some kind, but not all
of iron or steel; for some bore helms fashioned of horse-hide and bull-
hide covered over with the similitude of a Wolf's muzzle; nor were these
ill-defence against a sword-stroke. Shields they all had, and all these
had the image of the Wolf marked on them, but for many their thralls bore
them on the journey. As to their body-armour some carried long byrnies
of ring-mail, some coats of leather covered with splinters of horn laid
like the shingles of a roof, and some skin-coats only: whereof indeed
there were some of which tales went that they were better than the
smith's hammer-work, because they had had spells sung over them to keep
out steel or iron.
But for their weapons, they bore spears with shafts not very long, some
eight feet of our measure; and axes heavy and long-shafted; and bills
with great and broad heads; and some few, but not many of the kindred
were bowmen, and every freeman was girt with a sword; but of the swords
some were long and two-edged, some short and heavy, cutting on one edge,
and these were of the kind which they and our forefathers long after
called 'sax.' Thus were the freemen arrayed.
But for the thralls, there were many bows among them, especially among
those who were of blood alien from the Goths; the others bore short
spears, and feathered broad arrows, and clubs bound with iron, and knives
and axes, but not every man of them had a sword. Few iron helms they had
and no ringed byrnies, but most had a buckler at their backs with no sign
or symbol on it.
Thus then set forth the fighting men of the House of the Wolf toward the
Thing-stead of the Upper-mark where the hosting was to be, and by then
they were moving up along the side of Mirkwood-water it was somewhat past
high-noon.
But the stay-at-home people who had come down with them to the meadow
lingered long in that place; and much foreboding there was among them of
evil to come; and of the old folk, some remembered tales of the past days
of the Markmen, and how they had come from the ends of the earth, and the
mountains where none dwell now but the Gods of their kindreds; and many
of these tales told of their woes and their wars as they went from river
to river and from wild-wood to wild-wood before they had established
their Houses in the Mark, and fallen to dwelling there season by season
and year by year whether the days were good or ill. And it fell into
their hearts that now at last mayhappen was their abiding wearing out to
an end, and that the day should soon be when they should have to bear the
Hall-Sun through the wild-wood, and seek a new dwelling-place afar from
the troubling of these newly arisen Welsh foemen.
And so those of them who could not rid themselves of this foreboding were
somewhat heavier of heart than their wont was when the House went to the
War. For long had they abided there in the Mark, and the life was sweet
to them which they knew, and the life which they knew not was bitter to
them: and Mirkwood-water was become as a God to them no less than to
their fathers of old time; nor lesser was the mead where fed the horses
that they loved and the kine that they had reared, and the sheep that
they guarded from the Wolf of the Wild-wood: and they worshipped the kind
acres which they themselves and their fathers had made fruitful, wedding
them to the seasons of seed-time and harvest, that the birth that came
from them might become a part of the kindred of the Wolf, and the joy and
might of past springs and summers might run in the blood of the Wolfing
children. And a dear God indeed to them was the Roof of the Kindred,
that their fathers had built and that they yet warded against the fire
and the lightening and the wind and the snow, and the passing of the days
that devour and the years that heap the dust over the work of men. They
thought of how it had stood, and seen so many generations of men come and
go; how often it had welcomed the new-born babe, and given farewell to
the old man: how many secrets of the past it knew; how many tales which
men of the present had forgotten, but which yet mayhap men of times to
come should learn of it; for to them yet living it had spoken time and
again, and had told them what their fathers had not told them, and it
held the memories of the generations and the very life of the Wolfings
and their hopes for the days to be.
Thus these poor people thought of the Gods whom they worshipped, and the
friends whom they loved, and could not choose but be heavy-hearted when
they thought that the wild-wood was awaiting them to swallow all up, and
take away from them their Gods and their friends and the mirth of their
life, and burden them with hunger and thirst and weariness, that their
children might begin once more to build the House and establish the
dwelling, and call new places by old names, and worship new Gods with the
ancient worship.
Such imaginations of trouble then were in the hearts of the stay-at-homes
of the Wolfings; the tale tells not indeed that all had such forebodings,
but chiefly the old folk who were nursing the end of their life-days
amidst the cherishing Kindred of the House.
But now they were beginning to turn them back again to the habitations,
and a thin stream was flowing through the acres, when they heard a
confused sound drawing near blended of horns and the lowing of beasts and
the shouting of men; and they looked and saw a throng of brightly clad
men coming up stream alongside of Mirkwood-water; and they were not
afraid, for they knew that it must be some other company of the Markmen
journeying to the hosting of the Folk: and presently they saw that it was
the House of the Beamings following their banner on the way to the Thing-
stead. But when the new-comers saw the throng out in the meads, some of
their young men pricked on their horses and galloped on past the women
and old men, to whom they threw a greeting, as they ran past to catch up
with the bands of the Wolfings; for between the two houses was there
affinity, and much good liking lay between them; and the stay-at-homes,
many of them, lingered yet till the main body of the Beamings came with
their banner: and their array was much like to that of the Wolfings, but
gayer; for whereas it pleased the latter to darken all their war-gear to
the colour of the grey Wolf, the Beamings polished all their gear as
bright as might be, and their raiment also was mostly bright green of hue
and much beflowered; and the sign on their banner was a green leafy tree,
and the wain was drawn by great white bulls.
So when their company drew anear to the throng of the stay-at-homes they
went to meet and greet each other, and tell tidings to each other; but
their banner held steadily onward amidst their converse, and in a little
while they followed it, for the way was long to the Thing-stead of the
Upper-mark.
So passed away the fighting men by the side of Mirkwood-water, and the
throng of the stay-at-homes melted slowly from the meadow and trickled
along through the acres to the habitations of the Wolfings, and there
they fell to doing whatso of work or play came to their hands.