House of the Wolfings: The William Morris Book that Inspired J. R. R. Tolkiena *s The Lord of the Rings (33 page)

And this second part of the Morning Battle
is called Thiodolf’s Storm.

So now when the Hall-Sun looked and beheld
that the battle was done and the fire quenched, and when she saw
how every man that came into the Hall looked up and beheld the
wondrous Lamp and his face quickened into joy at the sight of it;
and how most looked up at the high-seat and Thiodolf lying leaned
back therein, her heart nigh broke between the thought of her grief
and of the grief of the Folk that their mighty friend was dead, and
the thought of the joy of the days to be and all the glory that his
latter days had won. But she gathered heart, and casting back the
dark tresses of her hair, she lifted up her voice and cried out
till its clear shrillness sounded throughout all the Roof:

“O men in this Hall the War-duke is dead! O
people hearken! for Thiodolf the Mighty hath changed his life: Come
hither, O men, Come hither, for this is true, that Thiodolf is
dead!”

Chapter 30

Thiodolf Is Borne Out of the Hall

And Otter Is Laid Beside Him

So when they heard her voice they came
thither flockmeal, and a great throng mingled of many kindreds was
in the Hall, but with one consent they made way for the Children of
the Wolf to stand nearest to the dais. So there they stood, the
warriors mingled with the women, the swains with the old men, the
freemen with the thralls: for now the stay-at-homes of the House
were all gotten into the garth, and the more part of them had
flowed into the feast-hall when they knew that the fire was
slackening.

All these now had heard the clear voice of
the Hall-Sun, or others had told them what had befallen; and the
wave of grief had swept coldly over them amidst their joy of the
recoverance of their dwelling-place; yet they would not wail nor
cry aloud, even to ease their sorrow, till they had heard the words
of the Hall-Sun, as she stood facing them beside their dead
War-duke.

Then she spake: “O Sorli the Old, come up
hither! thou hast been my fellow in arms this long while.”

So the old man came forth, and went slowly
in his clashing war-gear up on to the dais. But his attire gleamed
and glittered, since over-old was he to thrust deep into the press
that day, howbeit he was wise in war. So he stood beside her on the
dais holding his head high, and proud he looked, for all his thin
white locks and sunken eyes.

But again said the Hall-Sun: “Canst thou
hear me, Wolfkettle, when I bid thee stand beside me, or art thou,
too, gone on the road to Valhall?”

Forth then strode that mighty warrior and
went toward the dais: nought fair was his array to look on; for
point and edge had rent it and stained it red, and the flaring of
the hall-flames had blackened it; his face was streaked with black
withal, and his hands were as the hands of a smith among the
thralls who hath wrought unwashen in the haste and hurry when men
look to see the war-arrow abroad. But he went up on to the dais and
held up his head proudly, and looked forth on to the hall-crowd
with eyes that gleamed fiercely from his stained and blackened
face.

Again the Hall-Sun said: “Art thou also
alive, O Egil the messenger? Swift are thy feet, but not to flee
from the foe: Come up and stand with us!”

Therewith Egil clave the throng; he was not
so roughly dealt with as was Wolfkettle, for he was a bowman, and
had this while past shot down on the Romans from aloof; and he yet
held his bended bow in his hand. He also came up on to the dais and
stood beside Wolfkettle glancing down on the hall-crowd, looking
eagerly from side to side.

Yet again the Hall-Sun spake: “No aliens now
are dwelling in the Mark; come hither, ye men of the kindreds! Come
thou, our brother Hiarandi of the Elkings, for thy sisters, our
wives, are fain of thee. Come thou, Valtyr of the Laxings,
brother’s son of Otter; do thou for the War-duke what thy father’s
brother had done, had he not been faring afar. Come thou, Geirbald
of the Shieldings the messenger! Now know we the deeds of others
and thy deeds. Come, stand beside us for a little!”

Forth then they came in their rent and
battered war-gear: and the tall Hiarandi bore but the broken
truncheon of his sword; and Valtyr a woodman’s axe notched and dull
with work; and Geirbald a Roman cast-spear, for his own weapons had
been broken in the medley; and he came the last of the three, going
as a belated reaper from the acres. There they stood by the others
and gazed adown the hall-throng.

But the Hall-Sun spake again: “Agni of the
Daylings, I see thee now. How camest thou into the hard hand-play,
old man? Come hither and stand with us, for we love thee. Angantyr
of the Bearings, fair was thy riding on the day of the Battle on
the Ridge! Come thou, be with us. Shall the Beamings whose
daughters we marry fail the House of the Wolf to-day? Geirodd, thou
hast no longer a weapon, but the fight is over, and this hour thou
needest it not. Come to us, brother! Gunbald of the Vallings, the
Falcon on thy shield is dim with the dint of point and edge, but it
hath done its work to ward thy valiant heart: Come hither, friend!
Come all ye and stand with us!”

As she named them so they came, and they
went up on to the dais and stood altogether; and a terrible band of
warriors they looked had the fight been to begin over again, and
they to meet death once more. And again spake the Hall-Sun:

“Steinulf and Grani, deft are your hands!
Take ye the stalks of the war blossoms, the spears of the kindreds,
and knit them together to make a bier for our War-duke, for he is
weary and may not go afoot. Thou Ali, son of Grey; thou hast gone
errands for me before; go forth now from the garth, and wend thy
ways toward the water, and tell me when thou comest back what thou
hast seen of the coming of the Wain-burg. For by this time it
should be drawing anigh.”

So Ali went forth, and there was silence of
words for a while in the Hall; but there arose the sound of the
wood-wrights busy with the wimble and the hammer about the bier. No
long space had gone by when Ali came back into the hall panting
with his swift running; and he cried out:

“O Hall-Sun, they are coming; the last wain
hath crossed the ford, and the first is hard at hand: bright are
their banners in the sun.”

Then said the Hall-Sun: “O warriors, it is
fitting that we go to meet our banners returning from the field,
and that we do the Gods to wit what deeds we have done; fitting is
it also that Thiodolf our War-duke wend with us. Now get ye into
your ordered bands, and go we forth from the fire-scorched hall,
and out into the sunlight, that the very earth and the heavens may
look upon the face of our War-duke, and bear witness that he hath
played his part as a man.

Then without more words the folk began to
stream out of the Hall, and within the garth which the Romans had
made they arrayed their companies. But when they were all gone from
the Hall save they who were on the dais, the Hall-Sun took the
waxen torch which she had litten and quenched at the departure of
the host to battle, and now she once more kindled it at the flame
of the wondrous Lamp, the Hall-Sun. But the wood-wrights brought
the bier which they had made of the spear-shafts of the kindred,
and they laid thereon a purple cloak gold-embroidered of the
treasure of the Wolfings, and thereon was Thiodolf laid.

Then those men took him up; to wit, Sorli
the Old, and Wolfkettle and Egil, all these were of the Wolfing
House; Hiarandi of the Elkings also, and Valtyr of the Laxings,
Geirbald of the Shieldings, Agni of the Daylings, Angantyr of the
Bearings, Geirodd of the Beamings, Gunbald of the Vallings: all
these, with the two valiant wood-wrights, Steinulf and Grani, laid
hand to the bier.

So they bore it down from the dais, and out
at the Man’s-door into the sunlight, and the Hall-Sun followed
close after it, holding in her hand the Candle of Returning. It was
an hour after high-noon of a bright midsummer day when she came out
into the garth; and the smoke from the fire-scorched hall yet hung
about the trees of the wood-edge. She looked neither down towards
her feet nor on the right side or the left, but straight before
her. The ordered companies of the kindreds hid the sight of many
fearful things from her eyes; though indeed the thralls and women
had mostly gleaned the dead from the living both of friend and foe,
and were tending the hurt of either host. Through an opening in the
ranks moreover could they by the bier behold the scanty band of
Roman captives, some standing up, looking dully around them, some
sitting or lying on the grass talking quietly together, and it
seemed by their faces that for them the bitterness of death was
passed.

Forth then fared the host by the West gate,
where Thiodolf had done so valiantly that day, and out on to the
green amidst the booths and lesser dwellings. Sore then was the
heart of the Hall-Sun, as she looked forth over dwelling, and acre,
and meadow, and the blue line of the woods beyond the water, and
bethought her of all the familiar things that were within the
compass of her eyesight, and remembered the many days of her
father’s loving-kindness, and the fair words wherewith he had
solaced her life-days. But of the sorrow that wrung her heart
nothing showed in her face, nor was she paler now than her wont
was. For high was her courage, and she would in no wise mar that
fair day and victory of the kindreds with grief for what was gone,
whereas so much of what once was, yet abided and should abide for
ever.

Then fared they down through the acres,
where what was yet left of the wheat was yellowing toward harvest,
and the rye hung grey and heavy; for bright and hot had the weather
been all through these tidings. Howbeit much of the corn was
spoiled by the trampling of the Roman bands.

So came they into the fair open meadow and
saw before them the wains coming to meet them with their folk; to
wit a throng of stout carles of the thrall-folk led by the war-wise
and ripe men of the Steerings. Bright was the gleaming of the
banner-wains, though for the lack of wind the banners hung down
about their staves; the sound of the lowing of the bulls and the
oxen, the neighing of horses and bleating of the flocks came up to
the ears of the host as they wended over the meadow.

They made stay at last on the rising ground,
all trampled and in parts bloody, where yesterday Thiodolf had come
on the fight between the remnant of Otter’s men and the Romans:
there they opened their ranks, and made a ring round about a space,
amidmost of which was a little mound whereon was set the bier of
Thiodolf. The wains and their warders came up with them and drew a
garth of the wains round about the ring of men with the banners of
the kindreds in their due places.

There was the Wolf and the Elk, the Falcon,
the Swan, the Boar, the Bear, and the Green-tree: the Willow-bush,
the Gedd, the Water-bank and the Wood-Ousel, the Steer, the Mallard
and the Roe-deer: all these were of the Mid-mark. But of the
Upper-mark were the Horse and the Spear, and the Shield, and the
Daybreak, and the Dale, and the Mountain, and the Brook, and the
Weasel, and the Cloud, and the Hart.

Of the Nether-mark were the Salmon, and the
Lynx, and the Ling worm, the Seal, the Stone, and the Sea-mew; the
Buck-goat, the Apple-tree, the Bull, the Adder, and the Crane.

There they stood in the hot sunshine three
hours after noon; and a little wind came out of the west and raised
the pictured cloths upon the banner-staves, so that the men could
now see the images of the tokens of their Houses and the Fathers of
old time.

Now was there silence in the ring of men;
but it opened presently and through it came all-armed warriors
bearing another bier, and lo, Otter upon it, dead in his war-gear
with many a grievous wound upon his body. For men had found him in
an ingle of the wall of the Great Roof, where he had been laid
yesterday by the Romans when his company and the Bearings with the
Wormings made their onset: for the Romans had noted his exceeding
valour, and when they had driven off the Goths some of them brought
him dead inside their garth, for they would know the name and
dignity of so valorous a man.

So now they bore him to the mound where
Thiodolf lay and set the bier down beside Thiodolf’s, and the two
War-dukes of the Markmen lay there together: and when the warriors
beheld that sight, they could not forbear, but some groaned aloud,
and some wept great tears, and they clashed their swords on their
shields and the sound of their sorrow and their praise went up to
the summer heavens.

Now the Hall-Sun holding aloft the waxen
torch lifted up her voice and said:

O warriors of the Wolfings, by the token of
the flame

That here in my right hand flickers, ye are
back at the House of the Name,

And there yet burneth the Hall-Sun beneath
the Wolfing Roof,

And the flame that the foemen quickened hath
died out far aloof.

Ye gleanings of the battle, lift up your
hearts on high,

For the House of the War-wise Wolfings and
the Folk undoomed to die.

But ye kindreds of the Markmen, the Wolfing
guests are ye,

And to-night we hold the high-tide, and
great shall the feasting be,

For to-day by the road that we know not a
many wend their ways

To the Gods and the ancient Fathers, and the
hope of the latter days.

And how shall their feet be cumbered if we
tangle them with woe,

And the heavy rain of sorrow drift o’er the
road they go?

They have toiled, and their toil was
troublous to make the days to come;

Use ye their gifts in gladness, lest they
grieve for the Ancient Home!

Now are our maids arraying that
fire-scorched Hall of ours

With the treasure of the Wolfings and the
wealth of summer flowers,