The House of the Wolfings

by William Morris

  CHAPTER IV--THE HOUSE FARETH TO THE WAR

  Now when Thiodolf came back to the habitations of the kindred the wholeHouse was astir, both thrall-men and women, and free women hurrying fromcot to stithy, and from stithy to hall bearing the last of the war-gearor raiment for the fighting-men. But they for their part were somestanding about anigh the Man's-door, some sitting gravely within thehall, some watching the hurry of the thralls and women from the midmostof the open space amidst of the habitations, whereon there stood yetcertain wains which were belated: for the most of the wains were nowstanding with the oxen already yoked to them down in the meadow past theacres, 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 thewarriors been brought; and there were the horses tethered or held by thethralls; some indeed were already saddled and bridled, and on others werethe thralls doing the harness.

  But as for the wains of the Markmen, they were stoutly framed of ash-treewith panels of aspen, and they were broad-wheeled so that they might goover rough and smooth. They had high tilts over them well framed ofwillow-poles covered over with squares of black felt over-lapping likeshingles; which felt they made of the rough of their fleeces, for theyhad many sheep. And these wains were to them for houses upon the way ifneed were, and therein as now were stored their meal and their war-storeand after fight they would flit their wounded men in them, such as weretoo sorely hurt to back a horse: nor must it be hidden that whiles theylooked to bring back with them the treasure of the south. Moreover thefolk if they were worsted in any battle, instead of fleeing without moredone, 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 ofthose who had thrust them back in the field. And this garth they calledthe Wain-burg.

  So now stood three of these wains aforesaid belated amidst of thehabitations of the House, their yoke-beasts standing or lying downunharnessed as yet to them: but in the very midst of that place was awain unlike to them; smaller than they but higher; square of shape as tothe floor of it; built lighter than they, yet far stronger; as thewarrior is stronger than the big carle and trencher-licker that loitersabout the hall; and from the midst of this wain arose a mast made of atall 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 ofwar, and with his mouth open and gaping upon the foemen. Also whereasthe other wains were drawn by mere oxen, and those of divers colours, aschance would have it, the wain of the banner was drawn by ten black bullsof the mightiest of the herd, deep-dewlapped, high-crested andcurly-browed; and their harness was decked with gold, and so was the wainitself, and the woodwork of it painted red with vermilion. There thenstood the Banner of the House of the Wolfings awaiting the departure ofthe warriors to the hosting.

  So Thiodolf stood on the top of the bent beside that same mound wherefromhe had blown the War-horn yester-eve, and which was called the Hill ofSpeech, and he shaded his eyes with his hand and looked around him; andeven therewith the carles fell to yoking the beasts to the belated wains,and the warriors gathered together from out of the mixed throngs, andcame from the Roof and the Man's-door and all set their faces toward theHill of Speech.

  So Thiodolf knew that all was ready for departure, and it wanted but anhour of high-noon; so he turned about and went into the Hall, and therefound his shield and his spear hanging in his sleeping place beside thehauberk he was wont to wear; then he looked, as one striving withthought, 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 hisspear 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 nowarrayed in a garment of fine white wool, on the breast whereof werewrought in gold two beasts ramping up against a fire-altar whereon aflame flickered; and on the skirts and the hems were other devices, ofwolves chasing deer, and men shooting with the bow; and that garment wasan ancient treasure; but she had a broad girdle of gold and gems abouther middle, and on her arms and neck she wore great gold rings wroughtdelicately. By then there were few save the Hall-Sun under the Roof, andthey but the oldest of the women, or a few very old men, and some whowere ailing and might not go abroad. But before her on the thwart tablelay the Great War-horn awaiting the coming of Thiodolf to give signal ofdeparture.

  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 theHill of Speech, and blew thence a short blast on the horn, and then cameall the Warriors flocking to the Hill of Speech, each man stark in hisharness, alert and joyous.

  Then presently through the Man's-door came the Hall-Sun in that ancientgarment, which fell straight and stiff down to her ancles as she steppedlightly 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 flameamidst the bright sunlight looked like a wavering leaf of vermilion.

  The warriors saw her, and made a lane for her, and she made her waythrough it up to the Hill of Speech, and she went up to the top of it andstood there holding the lighted candle in her hand, so that all might seeit. Then suddenly was there as great a silence as there may be on aforenoon of summer; for even the thralls down in the meadow had notedwhat was toward, and ceased their talking and shouting, for as far off asthey were, since they could see that the Hall-Sun stood on the Hill ofSpeech, for the wood was dark behind her; so they knew the Farewell Flamewas lighted, and that the maiden would speak; and to all men her speechwas 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 itagainst the grass and quenched it indeed; but the whole throng ofwarriors turned about, for the bulls of the banner-wain lowered theirheads in the yokes and began to draw, lowing mightily; and the waincreaked and moved on, and all the men-at-arms followed after, and downthey went through the lanes of the corn, and a many women and childrenand old men went down into the mead with them.

  In their hearts they all wondered what the Hall-Sun's words mightsignify; for she had told them nought about the battles to be, savingthat some should come back to the Mid-mark; whereas aforetime somewhatwould she foretell to them concerning the fortune of the fight, and nowhad she said to them nothing but what their own
hearts told them.Nevertheless they bore their crests high as they followed the Wolf downinto the meadow, where all was now ready for departure. There theyarrayed themselves and went down to the lip of Mirkwood-water; and suchwas their array that the banner went first, save that a band of fullyarmed men went before it; and behind it and about were the others as wellarrayed as they. Then went the wains that bore their munition, witharmed carles of the thrall-folk about them, who were ever the guard ofthe wains, and should never leave them night or day; and lastly went thegreat band of the warriors and the rest of the thralls with them.

  As to their war-gear, all the freemen had helms of some kind, but not allof iron or steel; for some bore helms fashioned of horse-hide and bull-hide covered over with the similitude of a Wolf's muzzle; nor were theseill-defence against a sword-stroke. Shields they all had, and all thesehad the image of the Wolf marked on them, but for many their thralls borethem on the journey. As to their body-armour some carried long byrniesof ring-mail, some coats of leather covered with splinters of horn laidlike the shingles of a roof, and some skin-coats only: whereof indeedthere were some of which tales went that they were better than thesmith's hammer-work, because they had had spells sung over them to keepout steel or iron.

  But for their weapons, they bore spears with shafts not very long, someeight feet of our measure; and axes heavy and long-shafted; and billswith great and broad heads; and some few, but not many of the kindredwere bowmen, and every freeman was girt with a sword; but of the swordssome were long and two-edged, some short and heavy, cutting on one edge,and these were of the kind which they and our forefathers long aftercalled 'sax.' Thus were the freemen arrayed.

  But for the thralls, there were many bows among them, especially amongthose who were of blood alien from the Goths; the others bore shortspears, and feathered broad arrows, and clubs bound with iron, and knivesand axes, but not every man of them had a sword. Few iron helms they hadand no ringed byrnies, but most had a buckler at their backs with no signor symbol on it.

  Thus then set forth the fighting men of the House of the Wolf toward theThing-stead of the Upper-mark where the hosting was to be, and by thenthey were moving up along the side of Mirkwood-water it was somewhat pasthigh-noon.

  But the stay-at-home people who had come down with them to the meadowlingered long in that place; and much foreboding there was among them ofevil to come; and of the old folk, some remembered tales of the past daysof the Markmen, and how they had come from the ends of the earth, and themountains where none dwell now but the Gods of their kindreds; and manyof these tales told of their woes and their wars as they went from riverto river and from wild-wood to wild-wood before they had establishedtheir Houses in the Mark, and fallen to dwelling there season by seasonand year by year whether the days were good or ill. And it fell intotheir hearts that now at last mayhappen was their abiding wearing out toan end, and that the day should soon be when they should have to bear theHall-Sun through the wild-wood, and seek a new dwelling-place afar fromthe troubling of these newly arisen Welsh foemen.

  And so those of them who could not rid themselves of this foreboding weresomewhat heavier of heart than their wont was when the House went to theWar. For long had they abided there in the Mark, and the life was sweetto them which they knew, and the life which they knew not was bitter tothem: and Mirkwood-water was become as a God to them no less than totheir fathers of old time; nor lesser was the mead where fed the horsesthat they loved and the kine that they had reared, and the sheep thatthey guarded from the Wolf of the Wild-wood: and they worshipped the kindacres which they themselves and their fathers had made fruitful, weddingthem to the seasons of seed-time and harvest, that the birth that camefrom them might become a part of the kindred of the Wolf, and the joy andmight of past springs and summers might run in the blood of the Wolfingchildren. And a dear God indeed to them was the Roof of the Kindred,that their fathers had built and that they yet warded against the fireand the lightening and the wind and the snow, and the passing of the daysthat devour and the years that heap the dust over the work of men. Theythought of how it had stood, and seen so many generations of men come andgo; how often it had welcomed the new-born babe, and given farewell tothe old man: how many secrets of the past it knew; how many tales whichmen of the present had forgotten, but which yet mayhap men of times tocome should learn of it; for to them yet living it had spoken time andagain, and had told them what their fathers had not told them, and itheld the memories of the generations and the very life of the Wolfingsand their hopes for the days to be.

  Thus these poor people thought of the Gods whom they worshipped, and thefriends whom they loved, and could not choose but be heavy-hearted whenthey thought that the wild-wood was awaiting them to swallow all up, andtake away from them their Gods and their friends and the mirth of theirlife, and burden them with hunger and thirst and weariness, that theirchildren might begin once more to build the House and establish thedwelling, and call new places by old names, and worship new Gods with theancient worship.

  Such imaginations of trouble then were in the hearts of the stay-at-homesof the Wolfings; the tale tells not indeed that all had such forebodings,but chiefly the old folk who were nursing the end of their life-daysamidst the cherishing Kindred of the House.

  But now they were beginning to turn them back again to the habitations,and a thin stream was flowing through the acres, when they heard aconfused sound drawing near blended of horns and the lowing of beasts andthe shouting of men; and they looked and saw a throng of brightly cladmen coming up stream alongside of Mirkwood-water; and they were notafraid, for they knew that it must be some other company of the Markmenjourneying to the hosting of the Folk: and presently they saw that it wasthe House of the Beamings following their banner on the way to the Thing-stead. But when the new-comers saw the throng out in the meads, some oftheir young men pricked on their horses and galloped on past the womenand old men, to whom they threw a greeting, as they ran past to catch upwith the bands of the Wolfings; for between the two houses was thereaffinity, and much good liking lay between them; and the stay-at-homes,many of them, lingered yet till the main body of the Beamings came withtheir banner: and their array was much like to that of the Wolfings, butgayer; for whereas it pleased the latter to darken all their war-gear tothe colour of the grey Wolf, the Beamings polished all their gear asbright as might be, and their raiment also was mostly bright green of hueand much beflowered; and the sign on their banner was a green leafy tree,and the wain was drawn by great white bulls.

  So when their company drew anear to the throng of the stay-at-homes theywent to meet and greet each other, and tell tidings to each other; buttheir banner held steadily onward amidst their converse, and in a littlewhile they followed it, for the way was long to the Thing-stead of theUpper-mark.

  So passed away the fighting men by the side of Mirkwood-water, and thethrong of the stay-at-homes melted slowly from the meadow and trickledalong through the acres to the habitations of the Wolfings, and therethey fell to doing whatso of work or play came to their hands.