It was scarce an hour after this that the footmen of Thiodolf came out of
the thicket road on to the meadow of the Bearings; there saw they men
gathered on a rising ground, and they came up to them and saw how some of
them were looking with troubled faces towards the ford and what lay
beyond it, and some toward the wood and the coming of Thiodolf. But
these were they whom Otter had bidden abide Thiodolf there, and he had
sent two messengers to them for Thiodolf's behoof that he might have due
tidings so soon as he came out of the thicket: the first told how Otter
had been compelled in a manner to fall on the Romans along with the
riders of the Bearings and the Wormings, and the second who had but just
then come, told how the Markmen had been worsted by the Romans, and had
given back from the Wolfing dwellings, and were making a stand against
the foemen in the meadow betwixt the ford and Wolfstead.
Now when Thiodolf heard of these tidings he stayed not to ask long
questions, but led the whole host straightway down to the ford, lest the
remnant of Otter's men should be driven down there, and the Romans should
hold the western bank against him.
At the ford there was none to withstand them, nor indeed any man at all;
for the men whom Otter had set there, when they heard that the battle had
gone against their kindred, had ridden their ways to join them. So
Thiodolf crossed over the ford, he and his in good order all afoot, he
like to the others; but for him he was clad in the Dwarf-wrought Hauberk,
but was unhelmeted and bare no shield. Throng-plough was naked in his
hand as he came up all dripping on to the bank and stood in the meadow of
the Wolfings; his face was stern and set as he gazed straight onward to
the place of the fray, but he did not look as joyous as his wont was in
going down to the battle.
Now they had gone but a short way from the ford before the noise of the
fight and the blowing of horns came down the wind to them, but it was a
little way further before they saw the fray with their eyes; because the
ground fell away from the river somewhat at first, and then rose and fell
again before it went up in one slope toward the Wolfing dwellings.
But when they were come to the top of the next swelling of the ground,
they beheld from thence what they had to deal with; for there round about
a ground of vantage was the field black with the Roman host, and in the
midst of it was a tangle of struggling men and tossing spears, and
glittering swords.
So when they beheld the battle of their kindred they gave a great shout
and hastened onward the faster; and they were ordered into the
wedge-array and Thiodolf led them, as meet it was. And now even as they
who were on the outward edge of the array and could see what was toward
were looking on the battle with eager eyes, there came an answering shout
down the wind, which they knew for the voice of the Goths amid the
foemen, and then they saw how the ring of the Romans shook and parted,
and their array fell back, and lo the company of the Markmen standing
stoutly together, though sorely minished; and sure it was that they had
not fled or been scattered, but were ready to fall one over another in
one band, for there were no men straggling towards the ford, though many
masterless horses ran here and there about the meadow. Now, therefore,
none doubted but that they would deliver their friends from the Romans,
and overthrow the foemen.
But now befel a wonder, a strange thing to tell of. The Romans soon
perceived what was adoing, whereupon the half of them turned about to
face the new comers, while the other half still withstood the company of
Otter: the wedge-array of Thiodolf drew nearer and nearer till it was
hard on the place where it should spread itself out to storm down on the
foe, and the Goths beset by the Romans made them ready to fall on from
their side. There was Thiodolf leading his host, and all men looking for
the token and sign to fall on; but even as he lifted up Throng-plough to
give that sign, a cloud came over his eyes and he saw nought of all that
was before him, and he staggered back as one who hath gotten a deadly
stroke, and so fell swooning to the earth, though none had smitten him.
Then stayed was the wedge-array even at the very point of onset, and the
hearts of the Goths sank, for they deemed that their leader was slain,
and those who were nearest to him raised him up and bore him hastily
aback out of the battle; and the Romans also had beheld him fall, and
they also deemed him dead or sore hurt, and shouted for joy and loitered
not, but stormed forth on the wedge-array like valiant men; for it must
be told that they, who erst out-numbered the company of Otter, were now
much out-numbered, but they deemed it might well be that they could
dismay the Goths since they had been stayed by the fall of their leader;
and Otter's company were wearied with sore fighting against a great host.
Nevertheless these last, who had not seen the fall of Thiodolf (for the
Romans were thick between him and them) fell on with such exceeding fury
that they drove the Romans who faced them back on those who had set on
the wedge-array, which also stood fast undismayed; for he who stood next
to Thiodolf, a man big of body, and stout of heart, hight Thorolf, hove
up a great axe and cried out aloud:
"Here is the next man to Thiodolf! here is one who will not fall till
some one thrusts him over, here is Thorolf of the Wolfings! Stand fast
and shield you, and smite, though Thiodolf be gone untimely to the Gods!"
So none gave back a foot, and fierce was the fight about the wedge-array;
and the men of Otter--but there was no Otter there, and many another man
was gone, and Arinbiorn the Old led them--these stormed on so fiercely
that they cleft their way through all and joined themselves to their
kindred, and the battle was renewed in the Wolfing meadow. But the
Romans had this gain, that Thiodolf's men had let go their occasion for
falling on the Romans with their line spread out so that every man might
use his weapons; yet were the Goths strong both in valiancy and in
numbers, nor might the Romans break into their array, and as aforesaid
the Romans were the fewer, for it was less than half of their host that
had pursued the Goths when they had been thrust back from their fierce
onset: nor did more than the half seem needed, so many of them had fallen
along with Otter the War-duke and Sweinbiorn of the Bearings, that they
seemed to the Romans but a feeble band easy to overcome.
So fought they in the Wolfing meadow in the fifth hour after high-noon,
and neither yielded to the other: but while these things were a-doing,
men laid Thiodolf adown aloof from the battle under a doddered oak half a
furlong from where the fight was a-doing, round whose bole clung flocks
of wool from the sheep that drew around it in the hot summer-tide and
rubbed themselves against it, and the ground was trodden bare of grass
round the bole, and close to the trunk was worn into a kind of trench.
There then they laid Thiodolf, and they wondered that no blood came from
him, and that there was no sign of a shot-weapon in his body.
But as for him, when he fell, all memory of the battle and what had gone
before it faded from his mind, and he passed into sweet and pleasant
dreams wherein he was a lad again in the days before he had fought with
the three Hun-Kings in the hazelled field. And in these dreams he was
doing after the manner of young lads, sporting in the meadows, backing
unbroken colts, swimming in the river, going a-hunting with the elder
carles. And especially he deemed that he was in the company of one old
man who had taught him both wood-craft and the handling of weapons: and
fair at first was his dream of his doings with this man; he was with him
in the forge smithying a sword-blade, and hammering into its steel the
thin golden wires; and fishing with an angle along with him by the eddies
of Mirkwood-water; and sitting with him in an ingle of the Hall, the old
man telling a tale of an ancient warrior of the Wolfings hight Thiodolf
also: then suddenly and without going there, they were in a little
clearing of the woods resting after hunting, a roe-deer with an arrow in
her lying at their feet, and the old man was talking, and telling
Thiodolf in what wise it was best to go about to get the wind of a hart;
but all the while there was going on the thunder of a great gale of wind
through the woodland boughs, even as the drone of a bag-pipe cleaves to
the tune. Presently Thiodolf arose and would go about his hunting again,
and stooped to take up his spear, and even therewith the old man's speech
stayed, and Thiodolf looked up, and lo, his face was white like stone,
and he touched him, and he was hard as flint, and like the image of an
ancient god as to his face and hands, though the wind stirred his hair
and his raiment, as they did before. Therewith a great pang smote
Thiodolf in his dream, and he felt as if he also were stiffening into
stone, and he strove and struggled, and lo, the wild-wood was gone, and a
white light empty of all vision was before him, and as he moved his head
this became the Wolfing meadow, as he had known it so long, and thereat a
soft pleasure and joy took hold of him, till again he looked, and saw
there no longer the kine and sheep, and the herd-women tending them, but
the rush and turmoil of that fierce battle, the confused thundering noise
of which was going up to the heavens; for indeed he was now fully awake
again.
So he stood up and looked about; and around him was a ring of the
sorrowful faces of the warriors, who had deemed that he was hurt deadly,
though no hurt could they find upon him. But the Dwarf-wrought Hauberk
lay upon the ground beside him; for they had taken it off him to look for
his hurts.
So he looked into their faces and said: "What aileth you, ye men? I am
alive and unhurt; what hath betided?"
And one said: "Art thou verily alive, or a man come back from the dead?
We saw thee fall as thou wentest leading us against the foe as if thou
hadst been smitten by a thunder-bolt, and we deemed thee dead or
grievously hurt. Now the carles are fighting stoutly, and all is well
since thou livest yet."
So he said: "Give me the point and edges that I know, that I may smite
myself therewith and not the foemen; for I have feared and blenched from
the battle."
Said an old warrior: "If that be so, Thiodolf, wilt thou blench twice? Is
not once enough? Now let us go back to the hard handplay, and if thou
wilt, smite thyself after the battle, when we have once more had a man's
help of thee."
Therewith he held out Throng-plough to him by the point, and Thiodolf
took hold of the hilts and handled it and said: "Let us hasten, while the
Gods will have it so, and while they are still suffering me to strike a
stroke for the kindred."
And therewith he brandished Throng-plough, and went forth toward the
battle, and the heart grew hot within him, and the joy of waking life
came back to him, the joy which but erewhile he had given to a mere
dream.
But the old man who had rebuked him stooped down and lifted the Hauberk
from the ground, and cried out after him, "O Thiodolf, and wilt thou go
naked into so strong a fight? and thou with this so goodly
sword-rampart?"
Thiodolf stayed a moment, and even therewith they looked, and lo! the
Romans giving back before the Goths and the Goths following up the chase,
but slowly and steadily. Then Thiodolf heeded nothing save the battle,
but ran forward hastily, and those warriors followed him, the old man
last of all holding the Hauberk in his hand, and muttering:
"So fares hot blood to the glooming and the world beneath the grass;
And the fruit of the Wolfings' orchard in a flash from the world must
pass.
Men say that the tree shall blossom in the garden of the folk,
And the new twig thrust him forward from the place where the old one
broke,
And all be well as aforetime: but old and old I grow,
And I doubt me if such another the folk to come shall know."
And he still hurried forward as fast as his old body might go, so that he
might wrap the safeguard of the Hauberk round Thiodolf's body.