Tales Before Tolkien (17 page)

And the curse soon came upon all of them. For one day, when Brynhild and Gudrun were bathing, Brynhild waded farthest out into the river, and said she did that to show she was Gudrun's superior. For her husband, she said, had ridden through the flame when no other man dared face it.

Then Gudrun was very angry, and said that it was Sigurd, not Gunnar, who had ridden the flame, and had received from Brynhild that fatal ring, the ring of the dwarf Andvari.

Then Brynhild saw the ring which Sigurd had given to Gudrun, and she knew it and knew all, and she turned as pale as a dead woman, and went home. All that evening she never spoke. Next day she told Gunnar, her husband, that he was a coward and a liar, for he had never ridden the flame, but had sent Sigurd to do it for him, and pretended that he had done it himself. And she said he would never see her glad in his hall, never drinking wine, never playing chess, never embroidering with the golden thread, never speaking words of kindness. Then she rent all her needlework asunder and wept aloud, so that everyone in the house heard her. For her heart was broken, and her pride was broken in the same hour. She had lost her true love, Sigurd, the slayer of Fafnir, and she was married to a man who was a liar.

Then Sigurd came and tried to comfort her, but she would not listen, and said she wished the sword stood fast in his heart.

“Not long to wait,” he said, “till the bitter sword stands fast in my heart, and thou will not live long when I am dead. But, dear Brynhild, live and be comforted, and love Gunnar thy husband, and I will give thee all the gold, the treasure of the dragon Fafnir.”

Brynhild said:

“It is too late.”

Then Sigurd was so grieved and his heart so swelled in his breast that it burst the steel rings of his shirt of mail.

Sigurd went out and Brynhild determined to slay him. She mixed serpent's venom and wolf's flesh, and gave them in one dish to her husband's younger brother, and when he had tasted them he was mad, and he went into Sigurd's chamber while he slept and pinned him to the bed with a sword. But Sigurd woke, and caught the sword Gram into his hand, and threw it at the man as he fled, and the sword cut him in twain. Thus died Sigurd, Fafnir's bane, whom no ten men could have slain in fair fight. Then Gudrun wakened and saw him dead, and she moaned aloud, and Brynhild heard her and laughed; but the kind horse Grani lay down and died of very grief. And then Brynhild fell a-weeping till her heart broke. So they attired Sigurd in all his golden armour, and built a great pile of wood on board his ship, and at night laid on it the dead Sigurd and the dead Brynhild, and the good horse, Grani, and set fire to it, and launched the ship. And the wind bore it blazing out to sea, flaming into the dark. So there were Sigurd and Brynhild burned together, and the curse of the dwarf Andvari was fulfilled.

The Folk
of the Mountain Door

by William Morris

William Morris was an enormous influence on Tolkien in terms of the general shape of his literary interests. Morris was a poet who translated
Beowulf
and a number of the Icelandic sagas. He was also a writer of prose romances tinged with a medieval flavor and style. Tolkien discovered Morris's translations in his teens, and his interest in Morris deepened at Exeter College, Oxford, where Morris had also been an undergraduate. Tolkien's earliest stories of his Middle-earth legendarium, published posthumously as
The Book of Lost Tales,
show a decided influence of Morris in their archaism and style.

Although written in the early 1890s, “The Folk of the Mountain Door” first appeared in volume 21 (1914) of
The Collected Works of William Morris.
The story itself was left untitled by Morris, and the title was given to it by his daughter, May Morris.

Of old time, in the days of the kings, there was a king of folk, a mighty man in battle, a man deemed lucky by the wise, who ruled over a folk that begrudged not his kingship, whereas they knew of his valour and wisdom and saw how by his means they prevailed over other folks, so that their land was wealthy and at peace save about its uttermost borders. And this folk was called the Folk of the Mountain Door, or more shortly, of the Door.

Strong of body was this king, tall and goodly to look on, so that the hearts of women fluttered with desire when he passed them by. In the prime and flower of his age he wedded a wife, a seemly mate, a woman of the Earl-kin, tall and white-skinned, golden haired and grey-eyed; healthy, sweet-breathed, and soft-spoken, courteous of manners, wise of heart, kind to all folk, well-beloved of little children. In early spring-tide was the wedding, and a little after Yule she was brought to bed of a man-child of whom the midwives said they had never seen a fairer. He was sprinkled with water and was named Host-lord after the name of his kindred of old.

Great was the feast of his name-day, and much people came thereto, the barons of the land, and the lords of the neighbouring folk who would fain stand well with the king; and merchants and craftsmen and sages and bards; and the king took them with both hands and gave them gifts, and hearkened to their talk and their tales, as if he were their very earthly fellow; for as fierce as he was afield with the sword in his fist, even so meek and kind he was in the hall amongst his folk and the strangers that sought to him.

Now amongst the guests that ate and drank in the hall on the even of the Name-day, the king as he walked amidst the tables beheld an old man as tall as any champion of the king's host, but far taller had he been, but that he was bowed with age. He was so clad that he had on him a kirtle of lambswool undyed and snow-white, and a white cloak, lined with ermine and welted with gold; a golden fillet set with gems was on his head, and a gold-hilted sword by his side; and the king deemed as he looked on him that he had never seen any man more like to the Kings of the Ancient World than this man. By his side sat a woman old and very old, but great of stature, and noble of visage, clad, she also, in white wool raiment embroidered about with strange signs of worms and fire-drakes, and the sun and the moon and the host of heaven.

So the king stayed his feet by them, for already he had noted that at the table whereat they sat there had been this long time at whiles greater laughter and more joyous than anywhere else in the hall, and whiles the hush of folk that hearken to what delights the inmost of their hearts. So now he greeted those ancients and said to them: “Is it well with you, neighbours?” And the old carle hailed the king, and said, “There is little lack in this house today.”

“What lack at all do ye find therein?” said the king. Then there came a word into the carle's mouth and he sang in a great voice:

Erst was the earth

Fulfilled of mirth:

Our swords were sheen

In the summer green;

And we rode and ran

Through winter wan,

And long and wide

Was the feast-hall's side.

And the sun that was sunken

Long under the wold

Hung ere we were drunken

High over the gold;

And as fowl in the bushes

Of summer-tide sing

So glad as the thrushes

Sang earl-folk and king.

Though the wild wind might splinter

The oak-tree of Thor,

The hand of mid-winter

But beat on the door.

“Yea,” said the king, “and dost thou say that winter hath come into my hall on the Name-day of my first-born?” “Not so,” said the carle.

“What is amiss then?” said the king. Then the carle sang again:

Were many men

In the feast-hall then,

And the worst on bench

Ne'er thought to blench

When the storm arose

In the war-god's close;

And for Tyr's high-seat,

Were the best full meet:

And who but the singer

Was leader and lord,

I steel-god, I flinger

Of adder-watched hoard?

Aloft was I sitting

Amidst of the place

And watched men a-flitting

All under my face.

And hushed for mere wonder

Were great men and small

As my voice in rhyme-thunder

Went over the hall.

“Yea,” said the king, “thou hast been a mighty lord in days gone past, I thought no less when first I set eyes on thee. And now I bid thee stand up and sit on the high-seat beside me, thou and thy mate. Is she not thy very speech-friend?”

Therewith a smile lit up the ancient man's face, and the woman turned to him and he sang:

Spring came of old

In the days of gold,

In the thousandth year

Of the thousands dear,

When we twain met

And the mead was wet

With the happy tears

Of the best of the years.

But no cloud hung over

The eyes of the sun

That looked down on the lover

Ere eve was begun.

Oft, oft came the greeting

Of spring and her bliss

To the mead of our meeting,

The field of our kiss.

Is spring growing older?

Is earth on the wane

As the bold and the bolder

That come not again?

“O king of a happy land,” said [the ancient man], “I will take thy bidding, and sit beside thee this night that thy wisdom may wax and the days that are to come may be better for thee than the days that are.”

So he spake and rose to his feet, and the ancient woman with him, and they went with the king up to the high-seat, and all men in the feast-hall rose up and stood to behold them, and they deemed them wonderful and their coming a great thing.

But now when they were set down on the right hand and the left hand of the king, he turned to the ancient man and said to him: “O Lord of the days gone past, and of the battles that have been, wilt thou now tell me of thy name, and the name of thy mate, that I may call a health for thee first of all great healths that shall be drunk tonight.”

But the old man said and sang:

King, hast thou thought

How nipped and nought

Is last year's rose

Of the snow-filled close?

Or dost thou find

Last winter's wind

Will yet avail

For thy hall-glee's tale?

E'en such and no other

If spoken tonight

Were the name of the brother

Of war-gods of might.

Yea the word that hath shaken

The walls of the house

When the warriors half waken

To battle would rouse

Ye should drowse if ye heard it

Nor turn in the chair.

O long long since they feared it

Those foemen of fear!

Unhelpful, unmeaning

Its letters are left;

For the man overweening

Of manhood is reft.

This word the king hearkened, and found no word in his mouth to answer: but he sat pondering heavy things, and sorrowful with the thought of the lapse of years, and the waning of the blossom of his youth. And all the many guests of the great feast-hall sat hushed, and the hall-glee died out amongst them.

But the old man raised his head and smiled, and he stood on his feet, and took the cup in his hand and cried out aloud: “What is this my masters, are ye drowsy with meat and drink in this first hour of the feast? Or have tidings of woe without words been borne amongst you, that ye sit like men given over to wanhope, awaiting the coming of the doom that none may gainsay, and the foe that none may overcome? Nay then, nay; but if ye be speechless I will speak; and if ye be joyless I will rejoice and bid the good wine welcome home. But first will I call a health over the cup:

Pour, white-armed ones,

As the Rhine flood runs!

And O thanes in hall

I bid you all

Rise up, and stand

With the horn in hand,

And hearken and hear

The old name and the dear.

To HOST-LORD the health is

Who guarded of old

The House where the wealth is

The Home of the gold.

And again the Tree bloometh

Though winter it be

And no heart of man gloometh

From mountain to sea.

Come thou Lord, the rightwise,

Come Host-lord once more

To thy Hall-fellows, fightwise

The Folk of the Door!

Huge then was the sudden clamour in the hall, and the shouts of men and clatter of horns and clashing of weapons as all folk old and young, great and little, carle and quean, stood up on the Night of the Name-day. And once again there was nought but joy in the hall of the Folk of the Door.

But amidst the clamour the inner doors of the hall were thrown open, and there came in women clad most meetly in coloured raiment, and amidst them a tall woman in scarlet, bearing in her arms the babe new born clad in fine linen and wrapped in a golden cloth, and she bore him up thus toward the high-seat, while all men shouted even more if it were possible, and set down cup and horn from their lips, and took up sword and shield and raised the shield-roar in the hall.

But the [king] rose up with a joyful countenance, and got him from out of his chair, and stood thereby: and the women stayed at the foot of the dais all but the nurse, who bore up the child to the king, and gave it into his arms; and he looked fondly on the youngling for a short space, and then raised him aloft so that all men in the hall might see him, and so laid him on the board before them and took his great spear from the wall behind him and drew the point thereof across and across the boy's face so that it well nigh grazed his flesh: at the first and at the last did verily graze it as little as might be, but so that the blood started; and while the babe wailed and cried, as was to be looked for, the king cried aloud with a great voice:

“Here mark I thee to Odin even as were all thy kin marked from of old from the time that the Gods were first upon the earth.”

Then he took the child up in his arms and laid him in his own chair, and cried out: “This is Host-lord the son of Host-lord King and Duke of the Folk of the Door, who sitteth in his father's chair and shall do when I am gone to Odin, unless any of the Folk gainsay it.”

When he had spoken there came a man in at the door of the hall clad in all his war-gear with a great spear in his hand, and girt with a sword, and he strode clashing through the hall up to the high-seat and stood by the chair of the king and lifted up his helm a little and cried out:

“Where are now the gainsayers, or where is the champion of the gainsayers? Here stand I Host-rock of the Falcons of the Folk of the Door, ready to meet the gainsayers.”

And he let his helm fall down again so that his face was hidden. And a man one-eyed and huge rose up from the lower benches and cried out in a loud voice: “O champion, hast thou hitherto foregone thy meat and drink to sing so idle a song over the hall-glee? Come down amongst us, man, and put off thine armour and eat and drink and be merry; for [of] thine hunger and thirst am I full certain. Here be no gainsayers, but brethren all, the sons of one Mother and one Father, though they be grown somewhat old by now.”

Then was there a clamour again, joyous with laughter and many good words. And some men say, that when this man had spoken, the carle and quean ancient of days who sat beside the king's chair, were all changed and seemed to men's eyes as if they were in the flower of their days, mighty, and lovely and of merry countenance: and it is told that no man knew that big-voiced speaker, nor whence he came, and that presently when men looked for him he was gone from the hall, and they knew not how.

Be this as it may, the two ancient ones each stooped down over the chair whereas lay the little one and kissed him; and the old man took his cup and wetted the lips of the babe with red wine, and the old woman took a necklace from her neck of amber and silver and gold and did it on the youngling's neck and spake; and her voice was very sweet though she were old; and many heard the speech of her:

“O Host-lord of this even, Live long and hale! Many a woman shall look on thee and few that see thee shall forbear to love thee.”

Then the nurse took up the babe again and bore him out to the bower where lay his mother, and the folk were as glad as glad might be, and no man hath told of mirth greater and better than the hall-glee of that even. And the old carle sat yet beside the king and was blithe with him and of many words, and told him tales that he had never known before; and all these were of the valiant deeds and the lives of his fathers before him, and strange stories of the Folk of the Door and what they had done, and the griefs which they had borne and the joys which they had won from the earth and the heavens and the girdling waters of the world. And the king waxed exceeding glad as he heard it all, and thought he would try to bear it in mind as long as he lived; for it seemed to him that when he had parted from those two ancient ones, that night, he should never see them again.