House of the Wolfings: The William Morris Book that Inspired J. R. R. Tolkiena *s The Lord of the Rings (6 page)

Farest thou as the thrall and the cot-carle,
or clad in the raiment of kings?

He started, and his face reddened as he
answered:

O Wood-Sun thou wottest our battle and the
way wherein we fare:

That oft at the battle’s beginning the helm
and the hauberk we bear;

Lest the shaft of the fleeing coward or the
bow at adventure bent

Should slay us ere the need be, ere our
might be given and spent.

Yet oft ere the fight is over, and Doom hath
scattered the foe,

No leader of the people by his war-gear
shall ye know,

But by his hurts the rather, from the
cot-carle and the thrall:

For when all is done that a man may, ‘tis
the hour for a man to fall.

She yet smiled as she said in answer:

O Folk-wolf, heed and hearken; for when
shall thy life be spent

And the Folk wherein thou dwellest with thy
death be well content?

Whenso folk need the fire, do they hew the
apple-tree,

And burn the Mother of Blossom and the fruit
that is to be?

Or me wilt thou bid to thy grave-mound
because thy battle-wrath

May nothing more be bridled than the whirl
wind on his path?

So hearken and do my bidding, for the
hauberk shalt thou bear

E’en when the other warriors cast off their
battle-gear.

So come thou, come unwounded from the
war-field of the south,

And sit with me in the beech-wood, and kiss
me, eyes and mouth.

And she kissed him in very deed, and made
much of him, and fawned on him, and laid her hand on his breast,
and he was soft and blithe with her, but at last he laughed and
said:

God’s Daughter, long hast thou lived, and
many a matter seen,

And men full often grieving for the deed
that might have been;

But here my heart thou wheedlest as a maid
of tender years

When first in the arms of her darling the
horn of war she hears.

Thou knowest the axe to be heavy, and the
sword, how keen it is;

But that Doom of which thou hast spoken,
wilt thou not tell of this,

God’s Daughter, how it sheareth, and how it
breaketh through

Each wall that the warrior buildeth, yea all
deeds that he may do?

What might in the hammer’s leavings, in the
fire’s thrall shall abide

To turn that Folks’ o’erwhelmer from the
fated warrior’s side?

Then she laughed in her turn, and loudly;
but so sweetly that the sound of her voice mingled with the first
song of a newly awakened wood-thrush sitting on a rowan twig on the
edge of the Wood-lawn. But she said:

Yea, I that am God’s Daughter may tell thee
never a whit

From what land cometh the hauberk nor what
smith smithied it,

That thou shalt wear in the handplay from
the first stroke to the last;

But this thereof I tell thee, that it
holdeth firm and fast

The life of the body it lappeth, if the gift
of the Godfolk it be.

Lo this is the yoke-mate of doom, and the
gift of me unto thee.

Then she leaned down from the stone whereon
they sat, and her hand was in the dewy grass for a little, and then
it lifted up a dark grey rippling coat of rings; and she
straightened herself in the seat again, and laid that hauberk on
the knees of Thiodolf, and he put his hand to it, and turned it
about, while he pondered long: then at last he said:

What evil thing abideth with this warder of
the strife,

This burg and treasure chamber for the
hoarding of my life?

For this is the work of the dwarfs, and no
kindly kin of the earth;

And all we fear the dwarf-kin and their
anger and sorrow and mirth.

She cast her arms about him and fondled him,
and her voice grew sweeter than the voice of any mortal thing as
she answered:

No ill for thee, beloved, or for me in the
hauberk lies;

No sundering grief is in it, no lonely
miseries.

But we shall abide together, and that new
life I gave,

For a long while yet henceforward we twain
its joy shall have.

Yea, if thou dost my bidding to wear my gift
in the fight

No hunter of the wild-wood at the changing
of the night

Shall see my shape on thy grave-mound or my
tears in the morning find

With the dew of the morning mingled; nor
with the evening wind

Shall my body pass the shepherd as he
wandereth in the mead

And fill him with forebodings on the eve of
the Wolfings’ need.

Nor the horse-herd wake in the midnight and
hear my fateful cry;

Nor yet shall the Wolfing women hear words
on the wind go by

As they weave and spin the night down when
the House is gone to the war,

And weep for the swains they wedded and the
children that they bore.

Yea do my bidding, O Folk-wolf, lest a grief
of the Gods should weigh

On the ancient House of the Wolfings and my
death o’ercloud its day.

And still she clung about him, while he
spake no word of yea or nay: but at the last he let himself glide
wholly into her arms, and the dwarf-wrought hauberk fell from his
knees and lay on the grass.

So they abode together in that wood-lawn
till the twilight was long gone, and the sun arisen for some while.
And when Thiodolf stepped out of the beech-wood into the broad
sunshine dappled with the shadow of the leaves of the hazels moving
gently in the fresh morning air, he was covered from the neck to
the knee by a hauberk of rings dark and grey and gleaming,
fashioned by the dwarfs of ancient days.

Chapter 4

The House Fareth to the War

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.