House of the Wolfings: The William Morris Book that Inspired J. R. R. Tolkiena *s The Lord of the Rings (20 page)

“Wilt thou say that it is not so? then will
I wear the hauberk, and live and die happy. But if thou sayest that
I have deemed aright, and that a curse goeth with the hauberk, then
either for the sake of the folk I will not wear the gift and the
curse, and I shall die in great glory, and because of me the House
shall live; or else for thy sake I shall bear it and live, and the
House shall live or die as may be, but I not helping, nay I no
longer of the House nor in it. How sayest thou?”

Then she said:

Hail be thy mouth, beloved, for that last
word of thine,

And the hope that thine heart conceiveth and
the hope that is born in mine.

Yea, for a man’s delivrance was the hauberk
born indeed

That once more the mighty warrior might help
the folk at need.

And where is the curse’s dwelling if thy
life be saved to dwell

Amidst the Wolfing warriors and the folk
that loves thee well

And the house where the high Gods left thee
to be cherished well therein?

Yea more: I have told thee, beloved, that
thou art not of the kin;

The blood in thy body is blended of the
wandering Elking race,

And one that I may not tell of, who in
God-home hath his place,

And who changed his shape to beget thee in
the wild-wood’s leafy roof.

How then shall the doom of the Wolfings be
woven in the woof

Which the Norns for thee have shuttled? or
shall one man of war

Cast down the tree of the Wolfings on the
roots that spread so far?

O friend, thou art wise and mighty, but
other men have lived

Beneath the Wolfing roof-tree whereby the
folk has thrived.

He reddened at her word; but his eyes looked
eagerly on her. She cast down the hauberk, and drew one step nigher
to him. She knitted her brows, her face waxed terrible, and her
stature seemed to grow greater, as she lifted up her gleaming right
arm, and cried out in a great voice.

Thou Thiodolf the Mighty! Hadst thou will to
cast the net

And tangle the House in thy trouble, it is I
would slay thee yet;

For ‘tis I and I that love them, and my
sorrow would I give,

And thy life, thou God of battle, that the
Wolfing House might live.

Therewith she rushed forward, and cast
herself upon him, and threw her arms about him, and strained him to
her bosom, and kissed his face, and he her in likewise, for there
was none to behold them, and nought but the naked heaven was the
roof above their heads.

And now it was as if the touch of her face
and her body, and the murmuring of her voice changed and soft close
to his ear, as she murmured mere words of love to him, drew him
away from the life of deeds and doubts and made a new world for
him, wherein he beheld all those fair pictures of the happy days
that had been in his musings when first he left the field of the
dead.

So they sat down on the grey stone together
hand in hand, her head laid upon his shoulder, no otherwise than if
they had been two lovers, young and without renown in days of deep
peace.

So as they sat, her foot smote on the cold
hilts of the sword, which Thiodolf had laid down in the grass; and
she stooped and took it up, and laid it across her knees and his as
they sat there; and she looked on Throng-plough as he lay still in
the sheath, and smiled on him, and saw that the peace-strings were
not yet wound about his hilts. So she drew him forth and raised him
up in her hand, and he gleamed white and fearful in the growing
dawn, for all things had now gotten their colours again, whereas
amidst their talking had the night worn, and the moon low down was
grown white and pale.

But she leaned aside, and laid her cheek
against Thiodolf’s, and he took the sword out of her hand and set
it on his knees again, and laid his right hand on it, and said:

Two things by these blue edges in the face
of the dawning I swear;

And first this warrior’s ransom in the
coming fight to bear,

And evermore to love thee who hast given me
second birth.

And by the sword I swear it, and by the Holy
Earth,

To live for the House of the Wolfings, and
at last to die for their need.

For though I trow thy saying that I am not
one of their seed,

Nor yet by the hand have been taken and unto
the Father shown

As a very son of the Fathers, yet mid them
hath my body grown;

And I am the guest of their Folk-Hall, and
each one there is my friend.

So with them is my joy and sorrow, and my
life, and my death in the end.

Now whatso doom hereafter my coming days
shall bide,

Thou speech-friend, thou deliverer, thine is
this dawning-tide.

She spoke no word to him; but they rose up
and went hand in hand down the dale, he still bearing his naked
sword over his shoulder, and thus they went together into the
yew-copse at the dale’s end. There they abode till after the rising
of the sun, and each to each spake many loving words at their
departure; and the Wood-Sun went her ways at her will.

But Thiodolf went up the dale again, and set
Throng-plough in his sheath, and wound the peace-strings round him.
Then he took up the hauberk from the grass whereas the Wood-Sun had
cast it, and did it on him, as it were of the attire he was wont to
carry daily. So he girt Throng-plough to him, and went soberly up
to the ridge-top to the folk, who were just stirring in the early
morning.

Chapter 18

Tidings Brought to the Wain-Burg

Now it must be told of Otter and they of the
Wain-burg how they had the tidings of the overthrow of the Romans
on the Ridge, and that Egil had left them on his way to Wolfstead.
They were joyful of the tale, as was like to be, but eager also to
strike their stroke at the foe-men, and in that mood they abode
fresh tidings.

It has been told how Otter had sent the
Bearings and the Wormings to the aid of Thiodolf and his folk, and
these two were great kindreds, and they being gone, there abode
with Otter, one man with another, thralls and freemen, scant three
thousand men: of these many were bowmen good to fight from behind a
wall or fence, or some such cover, but scarce meet to withstand a
shock in the open field. However it was deemed at this time in the
Wain-burg that Thiodolf and his men would soon return to them; and
in any case, they said, he lay between the Romans and the Mark, so
that they had but little doubt; or rather they feared that the
Romans might draw aback from the Mark before they could be met in
battle again, for as aforesaid they were eager for the fray.

Now it was in the cool of the evening two
days after the Battle on the Ridge, that the men, both freemen and
thralls, had been disporting themselves in the plain ground without
the Burg in casting the spear and putting the stone, and running
races a-foot and a-horseback, and now close on sunset three young
men, two of the Laxings and one of the Shieldings, and a grey old
thrall of that same House, were shooting a match with the bow,
driving their shafts at a rushen roundel hung on a pole which the
old thrall had dight. Men were peaceful and happy, for the time was
fair and calm, and, as aforesaid, they dreaded not the Roman Host
any more than if they were Gods dwelling in God-home. The shooters
were deft men, and they of the Burg were curious to note their
deftness, and many were breathed with the games wherein they had
striven, and thought it good to rest, and look on the new sport: so
they sat and stood on the grass about the shooters on three sides,
and the mead-horn went briskly from man to man; for there was no
lack of meat and drink in the Burg, whereas the kindreds that lay
nighest to it had brought in abundant provision, and women of the
kindreds had come to them, and not a few were there scattered up
and down among the carles.

Now the Shielding man, Geirbald by name, had
just loosed at the mark, and had shot straight and smitten the
roundel in the midst, and a shout went up from the onlookers
thereat; but that shout was, as it were, lined with another, and a
cry that a messenger was riding toward the Burg: thereat most men
looked round toward the wood, because their minds were set on fresh
tidings from Thiodolf’s company, but as it happened it was from the
north and the side toward Mid-mark that they on the outside of the
throng had seen the rider coming; and presently the word went from
man to man that so it was, and that the new comer was a young man
on a grey horse, and would speedily be amongst them; so they
wondered what the tidings might be, but yet they did not break up
the throng, but abode in their places that they might receive the
messenger more orderly; and as the rider drew near, those who were
nighest to him perceived that it was a woman.

So men made way before the grey horse, and
its rider, and the horse was much spent and travel-worn. So the
woman rode right into the ring of warriors, and drew rein there,
and lighted down slowly and painfully, and when she was on the
ground could scarce stand for stiffness; and two or three of the
swains drew near her to help her, and knew her at once for
Hrosshild of the Wolfings, for she was well-known as a doughty
woman.

Then she said: “Bring me to Otter the
War-duke; or bring him hither to me, which were best, since so many
men are gathered together; and meanwhile give me to drink; for I am
thirsty and weary.”

So while one went for Otter, another reached
to her the mead-horn, and she had scarce done her draught, ere
Otter was there, for they had found him at the gate of the Burg. He
had many a time been in the Wolfing Hall, so he knew her at once
and said:

“Hail, Hrosshild! how farest thou?”

She said: “I fare as the bearer of evil
tidings. Bid thy folk do on their war-gear and saddle their horses,
and make no delay; for now presently shall the Roman host be in
Mid-mark!”

Then cried Otter: “Blow up the war-horn! get
ye all to your weapons and be ready to leap on your horses, and
come ye to the Thing in good order kindred by kindred: later on ye
shall hear Hrosshild’s story as she shall tell it to me!”

Therewith he led her to a grassy knoll that
was hard by, and set her down thereon and himself beside her, and
said:

“Speak now, damsel, and fear not! For now
shall one fate go over us all, either to live together or die
together as the free children of Tyr, and friends of the Almighty
God of the Earth. How camest thou to meet the Romans and know of
their ways and to live thereafter?”

She said: “Thus it was: the Hall-Sun
bethought her how that the eastern ways into Mid-mark that bring a
man to the thicket behind the Roof of the Bearings are nowise hard,
even for an host; so she sent ten women, and me the eleventh to the
Bearing dwelling and the road through the thicket aforesaid; and we
were to take of the Bearing stay-at-homes whomso we would that were
handy, and then all we to watch the ways for fear of the Romans.
And methinks she has had some vision of their ways, though mayhap
not altogether clear.

“Anyhow we came to the Bearing dwellings,
and they gave us of their folk eight doughty women and two
light-foot lads, and so we were twenty and one in all.

“So then we did as the Hall-Sun bade us, and
ordained a chain of watchers far up into the waste; and these were
to sound a point of war upon their horns each to each till the
sound thereof should come to us who lay with our horses hoppled
ready beside us in the fair plain of the Mark outside the
thicket.

“To be short, the horns waked us up in the
midst of yesternight, and of the watches also came to us the last,
which had heard the sound amidst the thicket, and said that it was
certainly the sound of the Goths’ horn, and the note agreed on.
Therefore I sent a messenger at once to the Wolfing Roof to say
what was toward; but to thee I would not ride until I had made
surer of the tidings; so I waited awhile, and then rode into the
wild-wood; and a long tale I might make both of the waiting and the
riding, had I time thereto; but this is the end of it; that going
warily a little past where the thicket thinneth and the road
endeth, I came on three of those watches or links in the chain we
had made, and half of another watch or link; that is to say six
women, who were come together after having blown their horns and
fled (though they should rather have abided in some lurking-place
to espy whatever might come that way) and one other woman, who had
been one of the watch much further off, and had spoken with the
furthest of all, which one had seen the faring of the Roman Host,
and that it was very great, and no mere band of pillagers or of
scouts. And, said this fleer (who was indeed half wild with fear),
that while they were talking together, came the Romans upon them,
and saw them; and a band of Romans beat the wood for them when they
fled, and she, the fleer, was at point to be taken, and saw two
taken indeed, and haled off by the Roman scourers of the wood. But
she escaped and so came to the others on the skirts of the thicket,
having left of her skin and blood on many a thornbush and rock by
the way.

“Now when I heard this, I bade this fleer
get her home to the Bearings as swiftly as she might, and tell her
tale; and she went away trembling, and scarce knowing whether her
feet were on earth or on water or on fire; but belike failed not to
come there, as no Romans were before 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.

“But my last word to thee, Otter, is that by
the Hall-Sun’s bidding the Bearings will not abide fire and steel
at their own stead, but when they hear true tidings of the Romans
being hard at hand, will take with them all that is not too hot or
too heavy to carry, and go their ways unto Wolf-stead: and the
tidings will go up and down the Mark on both sides of the water, so
that whatever is of avail for defence will gather there at our
dwelling, and if we fall, goodly shall be the howe heaped over us,
even if ye come not in time.