House of the Wolfings: The William Morris Book that Inspired J. R. R. Tolkiena *s The Lord of the Rings (29 page)

Bitter grief was in her face as she heard
him. But she spake and said: “Lo here the Hauberk which thou hast
done off thee, that thy breast might be the nearer to mine! Wilt
thou not wear it in the fight for my sake?”

He knit his brows somewhat, and said:

“Nay, it may not be: true it is that thou
saidest that no evil weird went with it, but hearken! Yesterday I
bore it in the fight, and ere I mingled with the foe, before I
might give the token of onset, a cloud came before my eyes and
thick darkness wrapped me around, and I fell to the earth
unsmitten; and so was I borne out of the fight, and evil dreams
beset me of evil things, and the dwarfs that hate mankind. Then I
came to myself, and the Hauberk was off me, and I rose up and
beheld the battle, that the kindreds were pressing on the foe, and
I thought not then of any past time, but of the minutes that were
passing; and I ran into the fight straightway: but one followed me
with that Hauberk, and I did it on, thinking of nought but the
battle. Fierce then was the fray, yet I faltered in it; till the
fresh men of the Romans came in upon us and broke up our array.
Then my heart almost broke within me, and I faltered no more, but
rushed on as of old, and smote great strokes all round about: no
hurt I got, but once more came that ugly mist over my eyes, and
again I fell unsmitten, and they bore me out of battle: then the
men of our folk gave back and were overcome; and when I awoke from
my evil dreams, we had gotten away from the fight and the Wolfing
dwellings, and were on the mounds above the ford cowering down like
beaten men. There then I sat shamed among the men who had chosen me
for their best man at the Holy Thing, and lo I was their worst!
Then befell that which never till then had befallen me, that life
seemed empty and worthless and I longed to die and be done with it,
and but for the thought of thy love I had slain myself then and
there.

“Thereafter I went with the host to the
assembly of the stay-at-homes and fleers, and sat before the
Hall-Sun our daughter, and said the words which were put into my
mouth. But now must I tell thee a hard and evil thing; that I loved
them not, and was not of them, and outside myself there was
nothing: within me was the world and nought without me. Nay, as for
thee, I was not sundered from thee, but thou wert a part of me;
whereas for the others, yea, even for our daughter, thine and mine,
they were but images and shows of men, and I longed to depart from
them, and to see thy body and to feel thine heart beating. And by
then so evil was I grown that my very shame had fallen from me, and
my will to die: nay, I longed to live, thou and I, and death seemed
hateful to me, and the deeds before death vain and foolish.

“Where then was my glory and my happy life,
and the hope of the days fresh born every day, though never dying?
Where then was life, and Thiodolf that once had lived?

“But now all is changed once more; I loved
thee never so well as now, and great is my grief that we must
sunder, and the pain of farewell wrings my heart. Yet since I am
once more Thiodolf the Mighty, in my heart there is room for joy
also. Look at me, O Wood-Sun, look at me, O beloved! tell me, am I
not fair with the fairness of the warrior and the helper of the
folk? Is not my voice kind, do not my lips smile, and mine eyes
shine? See how steady is mine hand, the friend of the folk! For
mine eyes are cleared again, and I can see the kindreds as they
are, and their desire of life and scorn of death, and this is what
they have made me myself. Now therefore shall they and I together
earn the merry days to come, the winter hunting and the spring
sowing, the summer haysel, the ingathering of harvest, the happy
rest of midwinter, and Yuletide with the memory of the Fathers,
wedded to the hope of the days to be. Well may they bid me help
them who have holpen me! Well may they bid me die who have made me
live!

“For whereas thou sayest that I am not of
their blood, nor of their adoption, once more I heed it not. For I
have lived with them, and eaten and drunken with them, and toiled
with them, and led them in battle and the place of wounds and
slaughter; they are mine and I am theirs; and through them am I of
the whole earth, and all the kindreds of it; yea, even of the
foemen, whom this day the edges in mine hand shall smite.

“Therefore I will bear the Hauberk no more
in battle; and belike my body but once more: so shall I have lived
and death shall not have undone me.

“Lo thou, is not this the Thiodolf whom thou
hast loved? no changeling of the Gods, but the man in whom men have
trusted, the friend of Earth, the giver of life, the vanquisher of
death?”

And he cast himself upon her, and strained
her to his bosom and kissed her, and caressed her, and awoke the
bitter-sweet joy within her, as he cried out:

“O remember this, and this, when at last I
am gone from thee!”

But when they sundered her face was bright,
but the tears were on it, and she said: “O Thiodolf, thou wert fain
hadst thou done a wrong to me so that I might forgive thee; now
wilt thou forgive me the wrong I have done thee?”

“Yea,” he said, “Even so would I do, were we
both to live, and how much more if this be the dawn of our
sundering day! What hast thou done?”

She said: “I lied to thee concerning the
Hauberk when I said that no evil weird went with it: and this I did
for the saving of thy life.”

He laid his hand fondly on her head, and
spake smiling: “Such is the wont of the God-kin, because they know
not the hearts of men. Tell me all the truth of it now at
last.”

She said:

Hear then the tale of the Hauberk and the
truth there is to tell:

There was a maid of the God-kin, and she
loved a man right well,

Who unto the battle was wending; and she of
her wisdom knew

That thence to the folk-hall threshold
should come back but a very few;

And she feared for her love, for she doubted
that of these he should not be;

So she wended the wilds lamenting, as I have
lamented for thee;

And many wise she pondered, how to bring her
will to pass

(E’en as I for thee have pondered), as her
feet led over the grass,

Till she lifted her eyes in the wild-wood,
and lo! she stood before

The Hall of the Hollow-places; and the
Dwarf-lord stood in the door

And held in his hand the Hauberk, whereon
the hammer’s blow

The last of all had been smitten, and the
sword should be hammer now.

Then the Dwarf beheld her fairness, and the
wild-wood many-leaved

Before his eyes was reeling at the hope his
heart conceived;

So sorely he longed for her body; and he
laughed before her and cried,

‘O Lady of the Disir, thou farest wandering
wide

Lamenting thy beloved and the folkmote of
the spear,

But if amidst of the battle this child of
the hammer he bear

He shall laugh at the foemen’s edges and
come back to thy lily breast

And of all the days of his life-time shall
his coming years be best.’

Then she bowed adown her godhead and sore
for the Hauberk she prayed;

But his greedy eyes devoured her as he stood
in the door and said;

‘Come lie in mine arms! Come hither, and we
twain the night to wake!

And then as a gift of the morning the
Hauberk shall ye take.’

So she humbled herself before him, and
entered into the cave,

The dusky, the deep-gleaming, the gem-strewn
golden grave.

But he saw not her girdle loosened, or her
bosom gleam on his love,

For she set the sleep-thorn in him, that he
saw, but might not move,

Though the bitter salt tears burned him for
the anguish of his greed;

And she took the hammer’s offspring, her
unearned morning meed,

And went her ways from the rock-hall and was
glad for her warrior’s sake.

But behind her dull speech followed, and the
voice of the hollow spake:

‘Thou hast left me bound in anguish, and
hast gained thine heart’s desire;

Now I would that the dewy night-grass might
be to thy feet as the fire,

And shrivel thy raiment about thee, and
leave thee bare to the flame,

And no way but a fiery furnace for the road
whereby ye came!

But since the folk of God-home we may not
slay nor smite,

And that fool of the folk that thou lovest,
thou hast saved in my despite,

Take with thee, thief of God-home, this
other word I say:

Since the safeguard wrought in the ring-mail
I may not do away

I lay this curse upon it, that whoso weareth
the same,

Shall save his life in the battle, and have
the battle’s shame;

He shall live through wrack and ruin, and
ever have the worse,

And drag adown his kindred, and bear the
people’s curse.’

Lo, this the tale of the Hauberk, and I knew
it for the truth:

And little I thought of the kindreds; of
their day I had no ruth;

For I said, They are doomed to departure; in
a little while must they wane,

And nought it helpeth or hindreth if I hold
my hand or refrain.

Yea, thou wert become the kindred, both
thine and mine; and thy birth

To me was the roofing of heaven, and the
building up of earth.

I have loved, and I must sorrow; thou hast
lived, and thou must die;

Ah, wherefore were there others in the world
than thou and I?

He turned round to her and clasped her
strongly in his arms again, and kissed her many times and said:

Lo, here art thou forgiven; and here I say
farewell!

Here the token of my wonder which my words
may never tell;

The wonder past all thinking, that my love
and thine should blend;

That thus our lives should mingle, and
sunder in the end!

Lo, this, for the last remembrance of the
mighty man I was,

Of thy love and thy forbearing, and all that
came to pass!

Night wanes, and heaven dights her for the
kiss of sun and earth;

Look up, look last upon me on this morn of
the kindreds’ mirth!

Therewith he arose and lingered no minute
longer, but departed, going as straight towards the Thing-stead and
the Folk-mote of his kindred as the swallow goes to her nest in the
hall-porch. He looked not once behind him, though a bitter wailing
rang through the woods and filled his heart with the bitterness of
her woe and the anguish of the hour of sundering.

Chapter 27

They Wend to the Morning Battle

Now when Thiodolf came back to the camp the
signs of dawn were plain in the sky, the moon was low and sinking
behind the trees, and he saw at once that the men were stirring and
getting ready for departure. He looked gladly and blithely at the
men he fell in with, and they at him, and scarce could they refrain
a shout when they beheld his face and the brightness of it. He went
straight up to where the Hall-Sun was yet sitting under her
namesake, with Arinbiorn standing before her amidst of a ring of
leaders of hundreds and scores: but old Sorli sat by her side clad
in all his war-gear.

When Thiodolf first came into that ring of
men they looked doubtfully at him, as if they dreaded somewhat, but
when they had well beheld him their faces cleared, and they became
joyous.

He went straight up to Arinbiorn and kissed
the old warrior, and said to him, “I give thee good morrow, O
leader of the Bearings! Here now is come the War-duke! and meseems
that we should get to work as speedily as may be, for lo the
dawning!”

“Hail to thine hand, War-duke!” said
Arinbiorn joyously; “there is no more to do but to take thy word
concerning the order wherein we shall wend; for all men are armed
and ready.”

Said Thiodolf; “Lo ye, I lack war-gear and
weapons! Is there a good sword hereby, a helm, a byrny and a
shield? For hard will be the battle, and we must fence ourselves
all we may.”

“Hard by,” said Arinbiorn, “is the war-gear
of Ivar of our House, who is dead in the night of his hurts gotten
in yesterday’s battle: thou and he are alike in stature, and with a
good will doth he give them to thee, and they are goodly things,
for he comes of smithying blood. Yet is it a pity of Throng-plough
that he lieth on the field of the slain.”

But Thiodolf smiled and said: “Nay, Ivar’s
blade shall serve my turn to-day; and thereafter shall it be seen
to, for then will be time for many things.”

So they went to fetch him the weapons; but
he said to Arinbiorn, “Hast thou numbered the host? What are the
gleanings of the Roman sword?”

Said Arinbiorn: “Here have we more than
three thousand three hundred warriors of the host fit for battle:
and besides this here are gathered eighteen hundred of the Wolfings
and the Bearings, and of the other Houses, mostly from over the
water, and of these nigh upon seven hundred may bear sword or shoot
shaft; neither shall ye hinder them from so doing if the battle be
joined.”

Then said Thiodolf: “We shall order us into
three battles; the Wolfings and the Bearings to lead the first, for
this is our business; but others of the smaller Houses this side
the water to be with us; and the Elkings and Galtings and the other
Houses of the Mid-mark on the further side of the water to be in
the second, and with them the more part of the Nether-mark; but the
men of Up-mark to be in the third, and the stay-at-homes to follow
on with them: and this third battle to let the wood cover them till
they be needed, which may not be till the day of fight draws to an
end, when all shall be needed: for no Roman man must be left alive
or untaken by this even, or else must we all go to the Gods
together. Hearken, Arinbiorn. I am not called fore-sighted, and yet
meseems I see somewhat how this day shall go; and it is not to be
hidden that I shall not see another battle until the last of all
battles is at hand. But be of good cheer, for I shall not die till
the end of the fight, and once more I shall be a man’s help unto
you. Now the first of the Romans we meet shall not be able to stand
before us, for they shall be unready, and when their men are gotten
ready and are fighting with us grimly, ye of the second battle
shall hear the war-token, and shall fall on, and they shall be
dismayed when they see so many fresh men come into the fight; yet
shall they stand stoutly; for they are valiant men, and shall not
all be taken unawares. Then, if they withstand us long enough,
shall the third battle come forth from the wood, and fall on either
flank of them, and the day shall be won. But I think not that they
shall withstand us so long, but that the men of Up-mark and the
stay-at-homes shall have the chasing of them. Now get me my
war-gear, and let the first battle get them to the outgate of the
garth.”