House of the Wolfings: The William Morris Book that Inspired J. R. R. Tolkiena *s The Lord of the Rings (19 page)

What then are the Gods devising, what
wonders do they will?

What mighty need is on them to work the
kindreds ill,

That the seed of the Ancient Fathers and a
woman of their kin

With her all unfading beauty must blend
herself therein?

Are they fearing lest the kindreds should
grow too fair and great,

And climb the stairs of God-home, and
fashion all their fate,

And make all earth so merry that it never
wax the worse,

Nor need a gift from any, nor prayers to
quench the curse?

Fear they that the Folk-wolf, growing as the
fire from out the spark

Into a very folk-god, shall lead the
weaponed Mark

From wood to field and mountain, to stand
between the earth

And the wrights that forge its thraldom and
the sword to slay its mirth?

Fear they that the sons of the wild-wood the
Loathly Folk shall quell,

And grow into Gods thereafter, and aloof in
God-home dwell?

Therewith he turned back into the Hall, and
was heavy-hearted and dreary of aspect; for he was somewhat
foreseeing; and it may not be hidden that this seeming Thorkettle
was no warrior of the Wolfings, but the Wood-Sun in his likeness;
for she had the power and craft of shape-changing.

Chapter 17

The Wood-Sun Speaketh with Thiodolf

Now the Markmen laid Heriulf in howe on the
ridge-crest where he had fallen, and heaped a mighty howe over him
that could be seen from far, and round about him they laid the
other warriors of the kindreds. For they deemed it was fittest that
they should lie on the place whose story they had fashioned. But
they cast earth on the foemen lower down on the westward-lying
bents.

The sun set amidst their work, and night
came on; and Thiodolf was weary and would fain rest him and sleep:
but he had many thoughts, and pondered whitherward he should lead
the folk, so as to smite the Romans once again, and he had a mind
to go apart and be alone for rest and slumber; so he spoke to a man
of the kindred named Solvi in whom he put all trust, and then he
went down from the ridge, and into a little dale on the southwest
side thereof, a furlong from the place of the battle. A beck ran
down that dale, and the further end of it was closed by a little
wood of yew trees, low, but growing thick together, and great grey
stones were scattered up and down on the short grass of the dale.
Thiodolf went down to the brook-side, and to a place where it
trickled into a pool, whence it ran again in a thin thread down the
dale, turning aside before it reached the yew-wood to run its ways
under low ledges of rock into a wider dale. He looked at the pool
and smiled to himself as if he had thought of something that
pleased him; then he drew a broad knife from his side, and fell to
cutting up turfs till he had what he wanted; and then he brought
stones to the place, and built a dam across the mouth of the pool,
and sat by on a great stone to watch it filling.

As he sat he strove to think about the Roman
host and how he should deal with it; but despite himself his
thoughts wandered, and made for him pictures of his life that
should be when this time of battle was over; so that he saw nothing
of the troubles that were upon his hands that night, but rather he
saw himself partaking in the deeds of the life of man. There he was
between the plough-stilts in the acres of the kindred when the west
wind was blowing over the promise of early spring; or smiting down
the ripe wheat in the hot afternoon amidst the laughter and merry
talk of man and maid; or far away over Mirkwood-water watching the
edges of the wood against the prowling wolf and lynx, the stars
just beginning to shine over his head, as now they were; or wending
the windless woods in the first frosts before the snow came, the
hunter’s bow or javelin in hand: or coming back from the wood with
the quarry on the sledge across the snow, when winter was deep,
through the biting icy wind and the whirl of the drifting snow, to
the lights and music of the Great Roof, and the merry talk therein
and the smiling of the faces glad to see the hunting-carles come
back; and the full draughts of mead, and the sweet rest a
night-tide when the north wind was moaning round the ancient
home.

All seemed good and fair to him, and whiles
he looked around him, and saw the long dale lying on his left hand
and the dark yews in its jaws pressing up against the rock-ledges
of the brook, and on his right its windings as the ground rose up
to the buttresses of the great ridge. The moon was rising over it,
and he heard the voice of the brook as it tinkled over the stones
above him; and the whistle of the plover and the laugh of the
whimbrel came down the dale sharp and clear in the calm evening;
and sounding far away, because the great hill muffled them, were
the voices of his fellows on the ridge, and the songs of the
warriors and the high-pitched cries of the watch. And this also was
a part of the sweet life which was, and was to be; and he smiled
and was happy and loved the days that were coming, and longed for
them, as the young man longs for the feet of his maiden at the try
sting-place.

So as he sat there, the dreams wrapping him
up from troublous thoughts, at last slumber overtook him, and the
great warrior of the Wolfings sat nodding like an old carle in the
chimney ingle, and he fell asleep, his dreams going with him, but
all changed and turned to folly and emptiness.

He woke with a start in no long time; the
night was deep, the wind had fallen utterly, and all sounds were
stilled save the voice of the brook, and now and again the cry of
the watchers of the Goths. The moon was high and bright, and the
little pool beside him glittered with it in all its ripples; for it
was full now and trickling over the lip of his dam. So he arose
from the stone and did off his war-gear, casting Throng-plough down
into the grass beside him, for he had been minded to bathe him, but
the slumber was still on him, and he stood musing while the stream
grew stronger and pushed off first one of his turfs and then
another, and rolled two or three of the stones over, and then
softly thrust all away and ran with a gush down the dale, filling
all the little bights by the way for a minute or two; he laughed
softly thereat, and stayed the undoing of his kirtle, and so laid
himself down on the grass beside the stone looking down the dale,
and fell at once into a dreamless sleep.

When he awoke again, it was yet night, but
the moon was getting lower and the first beginnings of dawn were
showing in the sky over the ridge; he lay still a moment gathering
his thoughts and striving to remember where he was, as is the wont
of men waking from deep sleep; then he leapt to his feet, and lo,
he was face to face with a woman, and she who but the Wood-Sun? and
he wondered not, but reached out his hand to touch her, though he
had not yet wholly cast off the heaviness of slumber or remembered
the tidings of yesterday.

She drew aback a little from him, and his
eyes cleared of the slumber, and he saw her that she was scantily
clad in black raiment, barefoot, with no gold ring on her arms or
necklace on her neck, or crown about her head. But she looked so
fair and lovely even in that end of the night-tide, that he
remembered all her beauty of the day and the sunshine, and he
laughed aloud for joy of the sight of her, and said:

“What aileth thee, O Wood-Sun, and is this a
new custom of thy kindred and the folk of God-home that their
brides array themselves like thralls new-taken, and as women who
have lost their kindred and are outcast? Who then hath won the Burg
of the Anses, and clomb the rampart of God-home?”

But she spoke from where she stood in a
voice so sweet, that it thrilled to the very marrow of his
bones.

I have dwelt a while with sorrow since we
met, we twain, in the wood:

I have mourned, while thou hast been merry,
who deemest the war-play good.

For I know the heart of the wilful and how
thou wouldst cast away

The rampart of thy life-days, and the wall
of my happy day.

Yea I am the thrall of Sorrow; she hath
stripped my raiment off

And laid sore stripes upon me with many a
bitter scoff.

Still bidding me remember that I come of the
God-folk’s kin,

And yet for all my godhead no love of thee
may win.

Then she looked longingly at him a while and
at last could no longer refrain her, but drew nigh him and took his
hands in hers, and kissed his mouth, and said as she caressed
him:

O where are thy wounds, beloved? how turned
the spear from thy breast,

When the storm of war blew strongest, and
the best men met the best?

Lo, this is the tale of to-day: but what
shall to-morrow tell?

That Thiodolf the Mighty in the fight’s
beginning fell;

That there came a stroke ill-stricken, there
came an aimless thrust,

And the life of the people’s helper lay
quenched in the summer dust.

He answered nothing, but smiled as though
the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand were pleasant to
him, for so much love there was in her, that her very grief was
scarcely grievous. But she said again:

Thou sayest it: I am outcast; for a God that
lacketh mirth

Hath no more place in God-home and never a
place on earth.

A man grieves, and he gladdens, or he dies
and his grief is gone;

But what of the grief of the Gods, and the
sorrow never undone?

Yea verily I am the outcast. When first in
thine arms I lay

On the blossoms of the woodland my godhead
passed away;

Thenceforth unto thee was I looking for the
light and the glory of life

And the Gods’ doors shut behind me till the
day of the uttermost strife.

And now thou hast taken my soul, thou wilt
cast it into the night,

And cover thine head with the darkness, and
turn thine eyes from the light.

Thou wouldst go to the empty country where
never a seed is sown

And never a deed is fashioned, and the place
where each is alone;

But I thy thrall shall follow, I shall come
where thou seemest to lie,

I shall sit on the howe that hides thee, and
thou so dear and nigh!

A few bones white in their war-gear that
have no help or thought,

Shall be Thiodolf the Mighty, so nigh, so
dear—and nought.

His hands strayed over her shoulders and
arms, caressing them, and he said softly and lovingly:

I am Thiodolf the Mighty: but as wise as I
may be

No story of that grave-night mine eyes can
ever see,

But rather the tale of the Wolfings through
the coming days of earth,

And the young men in their triumph and the
maidens in their mirth;

And morn’s promise every evening, and each
day the promised morn,

And I amidst it ever reborn and yet
reborn.

This tale I know, who have seen it, who have
felt the joy and pain,

Each fleeing, each pursuing, like the links
of the draw-well’s chain:

But that deedless tide of the grave-mound,
and the dayless nightless day,

E’en as I strive to see it, its image wanes
away.

What say’st thou of the grave-mound? shall I
be there at all

When they lift the Horn of Remembrance, and
the shout goes down the hall,

And they drink the Mighty War-duke and
Thiodolf the old?

Nay rather; there where the youngling that
longeth to be bold

Sits gazing through the hall-reek and sees
across the board

A vision of the reaping of the harvest of
the sword,

There shall Thiodolf be sitting; e’en there
shall the youngling be

That once in the ring of the hazels gave up
his life to thee.

She laughed as he ended, and her voice was
sweet, but bitter was her laugh. Then she said:

Nay thou shalt be dead, O warrior, thou
shalt not see the Hall

Nor the children of thy people ’twixt the
dais and the wall.

And I, and I shall be living; still on thee
shall waste my thought:

I shall long and lack thy longing; I shall
pine for what is nought.

But he smiled again, and said:

Not on earth shall I learn this wisdom; and
how shall I learn it then

When I lie alone in the grave-mound, and
have no speech with men?

But for thee,—O doubt it nothing that my
life shall live in thee,

And so shall we twain be loving in the days
that yet shall be.

It was as if she heard him not; and she fell
aback from him a little and stood silently for a while as one in
deep thought; and then turned and went a few paces from him, and
stooped down and came back again with something in her arms (and it
was the hauberk once more), and said suddenly:

O Thiodolf, now tell me for what cause thou
wouldst not bear

This grey wall of the hammer in the tempest
of the spear?

Didst thou doubt my faith, O Folk-wolf, or
the counsel of the Gods,

That thou needs must cast thee naked midst
the flashing battle-rods,

Or is thy pride so mighty that it seemed to
thee indeed

That death was a better guerdon than the
love of the God-head’s seed?

But Thiodolf said: “O Wood-Sun, this thou
hast a right to ask of me, why I have not worn in the battle thy
gift, the Treasure of the World, the Dwarf-wrought Hauberk! And
what is this that thou sayest? I doubt not thy faith towards me and
thine abundant love: and as for the rede of the Gods, I know it
not, nor may I know it, nor turn it this way nor that: and as for
thy love and that I would choose death sooner, I know not what thou
meanest; I will not say that I love thy love better than life
itself; for these two, my life and my love, are blended together
and may not be sundered.

“Hearken therefore as to the Hauberk: I wot
well that it is for no light matter that thou wouldst have me bear
thy gift, the wondrous hauberk, into battle; I deem that some doom
is wrapped up in it; maybe that I shall fall before the foe if I
wear it not; and that if I wear it, somewhat may betide me which is
unmeet to betide a warrior of the Wolfings. Therefore will I tell
thee why I have fought in two battles with the Romans with unmailed
body, and why I left the hauberk, (which I see that thou bearest in
thine arms) in the Roof of the Daylings. For when I entered
therein, clad in the hauberk, there came to meet me an ancient man,
one of the very valiant of days past, and he looked on me with the
eyes of love, as though he had been the very father of our folk,
and I the man that was to come after him to carry on the life
thereof. But when he saw the hauberk and touched it, then was his
love smitten cold with sadness and he spoke words of evil omen; so
that putting this together with thy words about the gift, and that
thou didst in a manner compel me to wear it, I could not but deem
that this mail is for the ransom of a man and the ruin of a
folk.