The House of the Wolfings Read online

  CHAPTER II--THE FLITTING OF THE WAR-ARROW

  Tells the tale that it was an evening of summer, when the wheat was inthe ear, but yet green; and the neat-herds were done driving the milch-kine to the byre, and the horseherds and the shepherds had made the night-shift, and the out-goers were riding two by two and one by one throughthe lanes between the wheat and the rye towards the meadow. Round thecots of the thralls were gathered knots of men and women both thralls andfreemen, some talking together, some hearkening a song or a tale, somesinging and some dancing together; and the children gambolling about fromgroup to group with their shrill and tuneless voices, like youngthrostles who have not yet learned the song of their race. With thesewere mingled dogs, dun of colour, long of limb, sharp-nosed, gaunt andgreat; they took little heed of the children as they pulled them about intheir play, but lay down, or loitered about, as though they had forgottenthe chase and the wild-wood.

  Merry was the folk with that fair tide, and the promise of the harvest,and the joy of life, and there was no weapon among them so close to thehouses, save here and there the boar-spear of some herdman or herd-womanlate come from the meadow.

  Tall and for the most part comely were both men and women; the most ofthem light-haired and grey-eyed, with cheek-bones somewhat high; white ofskin but for the sun's burning, and the wind's parching, and whereas theywere tanned of a very ruddy and cheerful hue. But the thralls were someof them of a shorter and darker breed, black-haired also and dark-eyed,lighter of limb; sometimes better knit, but sometimes crookeder of legand knottier of arm. But some also were of build and hue not much unliketo the freemen; and these doubtless came of some other Folk of the Gothswhich had given way in battle before the Men of the Mark, either they ortheir fathers.

  Moreover some of the freemen were unlike their fellows and kindred, beingslenderer and closer-knit, and black-haired, but grey-eyed withal; andamongst these were one or two who exceeded in beauty all others of theHouse.

  Now the sun was set and the glooming was at point to begin and theshadowless twilight lay upon the earth. The nightingales on the bordersof the wood sang ceaselessly from the scattered hazel-trees above thegreensward where the grass was cropped down close by the nibbling of therabbits; but in spite of their song and the divers voices of the men-folkabout the houses, it was an evening on which sounds from aloof can bewell heard, since noises carry far at such tides.

  Suddenly they who were on the edges of those throngs and were the lessnoisy, held themselves as if to listen; and a group that had gatheredabout a minstrel to hear his story fell hearkening also round about thesilenced and hearkening tale-teller: some of the dancers and singersnoted them and in their turn stayed the dance and kept silence tohearken; and so from group to group spread the change, till all werestraining their ears to hearken the tidings. Already the men of thenight-shift had heard it, and the shepherds of them had turned about, andwere trotting smartly back through the lanes of the tall wheat: but thehorse-herds were now scarce seen on the darkening meadow, as theygalloped on fast toward their herds to drive home the stallions. Forwhat they had heard was the tidings of war.

  There was a sound in the air as of a humble-bee close to the ear of onelying on a grassy bank; or whiles as of a cow afar in the meadow lowingin the afternoon when milking-time draws nigh: but it was ever shrillerthan the one, and fuller than the other; for it changed at whiles, thoughafter the first sound of it, it did not rise or fall, because the eve waswindless. You might hear at once that for all it was afar, it was agreat and mighty sound; nor did any that hearkened doubt what it was, butall knew it for the blast of the great war-horn of the Elkings, whoseRoof lay up Mirkwood-water next to the Roof of the Wolfings.

  So those little throngs broke up at once; and all the freemen, and of thethralls a good many, flocked, both men and women, to the Man's-door ofthe hall, and streamed in quietly and with little talk, as men knowingthat they should hear all in due season.

  Within under the Hall-Sun, amidst the woven stories of time past, sat theelders and chief warriors on the dais, and amidst of all a big strong manof forty winters, his dark beard a little grizzled, his eyes big andgrey. Before him on the board lay the great War-horn of the Wolfingscarved out of the tusk of a sea-whale of the North and with many deviceson it and the Wolf amidst them all; its golden mouth-piece and rimwrought finely with flowers. There it abode the blowing, until thespoken word of some messenger should set forth the tidings borne on theair by the horn of the Elkings.

  But the name of the dark-haired chief was Thiodolf (to wit Folk-wolf) andhe was deemed the wisest man of the Wolfings, and the best man of hishands, and of heart most dauntless. Beside him sat the fair woman calledthe Hall-Sun; for she was his foster-daughter before men's eyes; and shewas black-haired and grey-eyed like to her fosterer, and never was womanfashioned fairer: she was young of years, scarce twenty winters old.

  There sat the chiefs and elders on the dais, and round about stood thekindred intermingled with the thralls, and no man spake, for they wereawaiting sure and certain tidings: and when all were come in who had amind to, there was so great a silence in the hall, that the song of thenightingales on the wood-edge sounded clear and loud therein, and eventhe chink of the bats about the upper windows could be heard. Thenamidst the hush of men-folk, and the sounds of the life of the earth cameanother sound that made all turn their eyes toward the door; and this wasthe pad-pad of one running on the trodden and summer-dried ground anighthe hall: it stopped for a moment at the Man's-door, and the door opened,and the throng parted, making way for the man that entered and camehastily up to the midst of the table that stood on the dais athwart thehall, and stood there panting, holding forth in his outstretched handsomething which not all could see in the dimness of the hall-twilight,but which all knew nevertheless. The man was young, lithe and slender,and had no raiment but linen breeches round his middle, and skin shoes onhis feet. As he stood there gathering his breath for speech, Thiodolfstood up, and poured mead into a drinking horn and held it out towardsthe new-comer, and spake, but in rhyme and measure:

  "Welcome, thou evening-farer, and holy be thine head, Since thou hast sought unto us in the heart of the Wolfings' stead; Drink now of the horn of the mighty, and call a health if thou wilt O'er the eddies of the mead-horn to the washing out of guilt. For thou com'st to the peace of the Wolfings, and our very guest thou art, And meseems as I behold thee, that I look on a child of the Hart."

  But the man put the horn from him with a hasty hand, and none saidanother word to him until he had gotten his breath again; and then hesaid:

  "All hail ye Wood-Wolfs' children! nought may I drink the wine, For the mouth and the maw that I carry this eve are nought of mine; And my feet are the feet of the people, since the word went forth that tide, 'O Elf here of the Hartings, no longer shalt thou bide In any house of the Markmen than to speak the word and wend, Till all men know the tidings and thine errand hath an end.' Behold, O Wolves, the token and say if it be true! I bear the shaft of battle that is four-wise cloven through, And its each end dipped in the blood-stream, both the iron and the horn, And its midmost scathed with the fire; and the word that I have borne Along with this war-token is, 'Wolfings of the Mark Whenso ye see the war-shaft, by the daylight or the dark, Busk ye to battle faring, and leave all work undone Save the gathering for the handplay at the rising of the sun. Three days hence is the hosting, and thither bear along Your wains and your kine for the slaughter lest the journey should be long. For great is the Folk, saith the tidings, that against the Markmen come; In a far off land is their dwelling, whenso they sit at home, And Welsh {1} is their tongue, and we wot not of the word that is in their mouth, As they march a many together from the cities of the South.'"

  Therewith he held up yet for a minute the token of the war-arrow raggedand burnt and bloody; and turning about with it in his hand went his waysthrough the open door, none hindering; and when he was gone, it
was as ifthe token were still in the air there against the heads of the livingmen, and the heads of the woven warriors, so intently had all gazed atit; and none doubted the tidings or the token. Then said Thiodolf:

  "Forth will we Wolfing children, and cast a sound abroad: The mouth of the sea-beast's weapon shall speak the battle-word; And ye warriors hearken and hasten, and dight the weed of war, And then to acre and meadow wend ye adown no more, For this work shall be for the women to drive our neat from the mead, And to yoke the wains, and to load them as the men of war have need."

  Out then they streamed from the hall, and no man was left therein savethe fair Hall-Sun sitting under the lamp whose name she bore. But to thehighest of the slope they went, where was a mound made higher by man'shandiwork; thereon stood Thiodolf and handled the horn, turning his facetoward the downward course of Mirkwood-water; and he set the horn to hislips, and blew a long blast, and then again, and yet again the thirdtime; and all the sounds of the gathering night were hushed under thesound of the roaring of the war-horn of the Wolfings; and the Kin of theBeamings heard it as they sat in their hall, and they gat them ready tohearken to the bearer of the tidings who should follow on the sound ofthe war-blast.

  But when the last sound of the horn had died away, then said Thiodolf:

  "Now Wolfing children hearken, what the splintered War-shaft saith, The fire scathed blood-stained aspen! we shall ride for life or death, We warriors, a long journey with the herd and with the wain; But unto this our homestead shall we wend us back again, All the gleanings of the battle; and here for them that live Shall stand the Roof of the Wolfings, and for them shall the meadow thrive, And the acres give their increase in the harvest of the year; Now is no long departing since the Hall-Sun bideth here 'Neath the holy Roof of the Fathers, and the place of the Wolfing kin, And the feast of our glad returning shall yet be held therein. Hear the bidding of the War-shaft! All men, both thralls and free, 'Twixt twenty winters and sixty, beneath the shield shall be, And the hosting is at the Thing-stead, the Upper-mark anigh; And we wend away to-morrow ere the Sun is noon-tide high."

  Therewith he stepped down from the mound, and went his way back to thehall; and manifold talk arose among the folk; and of the warriors somewere already dight for the journey, but most not, and a many went theirways to see to their weapons and horses, and the rest back again into thehall.

  By this time night had fallen, and between then and the dawning would beno darker hour, for the moon was just rising; a many of the horse-herdshad done their business, and were now making their way back again throughthe lanes of the wheat, driving the stallions before them, who playedtogether kicking, biting and squealing, paying but little heed to thestanding corn on either side. Lights began to glitter now in the cots ofthe thralls, and brighter still in the stithies where already you mighthear the hammers clinking on the anvils, as men fell to looking to theirbattle gear.

  But the chief men and the women sat under their Roof on the eve ofdeparture: and the tuns of mead were broached, and the horns filled andborne round by young maidens, and men ate and drank and were merry; andfrom time to time as some one of the warriors had done with giving heedto his weapons, he entered into the hall and fell into the company ofthose whom he loved most and by whom he was best beloved; and whiles theytalked, and whiles they sang to the harp up and down that long house; andthe moon risen high shone in at the windows, and there was much laughterand merriment, and talk of deeds of arms of the old days on the eve ofthat departure: till little by little weariness fell on them, and theywent their ways to slumber, and the hall was fallen silent.