The House of the Wolfings

by William Morris

  CHAPTER XXIII--THIODOLF MEETETH THE ROMANS IN THE WOLFING MEADOW

  It was scarce an hour after this that the footmen of Thiodolf came out ofthe thicket road on to the meadow of the Bearings; there saw they mengathered on a rising ground, and they came up to them and saw how some ofthem were looking with troubled faces towards the ford and what laybeyond it, and some toward the wood and the coming of Thiodolf. Butthese were they whom Otter had bidden abide Thiodolf there, and he hadsent two messengers to them for Thiodolf's behoof that he might have duetidings so soon as he came out of the thicket: the first told how Otterhad been compelled in a manner to fall on the Romans along with theriders of the Bearings and the Wormings, and the second who had but justthen come, told how the Markmen had been worsted by the Romans, and hadgiven back from the Wolfing dwellings, and were making a stand againstthe foemen in the meadow betwixt the ford and Wolfstead.

  Now when Thiodolf heard of these tidings he stayed not to ask longquestions, but led the whole host straightway down to the ford, lest theremnant of Otter's men should be driven down there, and the Romans shouldhold the western bank against him.

  At the ford there was none to withstand them, nor indeed any man at all;for the men whom Otter had set there, when they heard that the battle hadgone against their kindred, had ridden their ways to join them. SoThiodolf crossed over the ford, he and his in good order all afoot, helike to the others; but for him he was clad in the Dwarf-wrought Hauberk,but was unhelmeted and bare no shield. Throng-plough was naked in hishand as he came up all dripping on to the bank and stood in the meadow ofthe Wolfings; his face was stern and set as he gazed straight onward tothe place of the fray, but he did not look as joyous as his wont was ingoing down to the battle.

  Now they had gone but a short way from the ford before the noise of thefight and the blowing of horns came down the wind to them, but it was alittle way further before they saw the fray with their eyes; because theground fell away from the river somewhat at first, and then rose and fellagain before it went up in one slope toward the Wolfing dwellings.

  But when they were come to the top of the next swelling of the ground,they beheld from thence what they had to deal with; for there round abouta ground of vantage was the field black with the Roman host, and in themidst of it was a tangle of struggling men and tossing spears, andglittering swords.

  So when they beheld the battle of their kindred they gave a great shoutand hastened onward the faster; and they were ordered into thewedge-array and Thiodolf led them, as meet it was. And now even as theywho were on the outward edge of the array and could see what was towardwere looking on the battle with eager eyes, there came an answering shoutdown the wind, which they knew for the voice of the Goths amid thefoemen, and then they saw how the ring of the Romans shook and parted,and their array fell back, and lo the company of the Markmen standingstoutly together, though sorely minished; and sure it was that they hadnot fled or been scattered, but were ready to fall one over another inone band, for there were no men straggling towards the ford, though manymasterless horses ran here and there about the meadow. Now, therefore,none doubted but that they would deliver their friends from the Romans,and overthrow the foemen.

  But now befel a wonder, a strange thing to tell of. The Romans soonperceived what was adoing, whereupon the half of them turned about toface the new comers, while the other half still withstood the company ofOtter: the wedge-array of Thiodolf drew nearer and nearer till it washard on the place where it should spread itself out to storm down on thefoe, and the Goths beset by the Romans made them ready to fall on fromtheir side. There was Thiodolf leading his host, and all men looking forthe token and sign to fall on; but even as he lifted up Throng-plough togive that sign, a cloud came over his eyes and he saw nought of all thatwas before him, and he staggered back as one who hath gotten a deadlystroke, and so fell swooning to the earth, though none had smitten him.Then stayed was the wedge-array even at the very point of onset, and thehearts of the Goths sank, for they deemed that their leader was slain,and those who were nearest to him raised him up and bore him hastilyaback out of the battle; and the Romans also had beheld him fall, andthey also deemed him dead or sore hurt, and shouted for joy and loiterednot, but stormed forth on the wedge-array like valiant men; for it mustbe told that they, who erst out-numbered the company of Otter, were nowmuch out-numbered, but they deemed it might well be that they coulddismay the Goths since they had been stayed by the fall of their leader;and Otter's company were wearied with sore fighting against a great host.Nevertheless these last, who had not seen the fall of Thiodolf (for theRomans were thick between him and them) fell on with such exceeding furythat they drove the Romans who faced them back on those who had set onthe wedge-array, which also stood fast undismayed; for he who stood nextto Thiodolf, a man big of body, and stout of heart, hight Thorolf, hoveup a great axe and cried out aloud:

  "Here is the next man to Thiodolf! here is one who will not fall tillsome one thrusts him over, here is Thorolf of the Wolfings! Stand fastand shield you, and smite, though Thiodolf be gone untimely to the Gods!"

  So none gave back a foot, and fierce was the fight about the wedge-array;and the men of Otter--but there was no Otter there, and many another manwas gone, and Arinbiorn the Old led them--these stormed on so fiercelythat they cleft their way through all and joined themselves to theirkindred, and the battle was renewed in the Wolfing meadow. But theRomans had this gain, that Thiodolf's men had let go their occasion forfalling on the Romans with their line spread out so that every man mightuse his weapons; yet were the Goths strong both in valiancy and innumbers, nor might the Romans break into their array, and as aforesaidthe Romans were the fewer, for it was less than half of their host thathad pursued the Goths when they had been thrust back from their fierceonset: nor did more than the half seem needed, so many of them had fallenalong with Otter the War-duke and Sweinbiorn of the Bearings, that theyseemed to the Romans but a feeble band easy to overcome.

  So fought they in the Wolfing meadow in the fifth hour after high-noon,and neither yielded to the other: but while these things were a-doing,men laid Thiodolf adown aloof from the battle under a doddered oak half afurlong from where the fight was a-doing, round whose bole clung flocksof wool from the sheep that drew around it in the hot summer-tide andrubbed themselves against it, and the ground was trodden bare of grassround the bole, and close to the trunk was worn into a kind of trench.There then they laid Thiodolf, and they wondered that no blood came fromhim, and that there was no sign of a shot-weapon in his body.

  But as for him, when he fell, all memory of the battle and what had gonebefore it faded from his mind, and he passed into sweet and pleasantdreams wherein he was a lad again in the days before he had fought withthe three Hun-Kings in the hazelled field. And in these dreams he wasdoing after the manner of young lads, sporting in the meadows, backingunbroken colts, swimming in the river, going a-hunting with the eldercarles. And especially he deemed that he was in the company of one oldman who had taught him both wood-craft and the handling of weapons: andfair at first was his dream of his doings with this man; he was with himin the forge smithying a sword-blade, and hammering into its steel thethin golden wires; and fishing with an angle along with him by the eddiesof Mirkwood-water; and sitting with him in an ingle of the Hall, the oldman telling a tale of an ancient warrior of the Wolfings hight Thiodolfalso: then suddenly and without going there, they were in a littleclearing of the woods resting after hunting, a roe-deer with an arrow inher lying at their feet, and the old man was talking, and tellingThiodolf in what wise it was best to go about to get the wind of a hart;but all the while there was going on the thunder of a great gale of windthrough the woodland boughs, even as the drone of a bag-pipe cleaves tothe tune. Presently Thiodolf arose and would go about his hunting again,and stooped to take up his spear, and even therewith the old man's speechstayed, and Thiodolf looked up, and lo, his face was white like stone,and he touched him, and he was hard as flint, and like the image
of anancient god as to his face and hands, though the wind stirred his hairand his raiment, as they did before. Therewith a great pang smoteThiodolf in his dream, and he felt as if he also were stiffening intostone, and he strove and struggled, and lo, the wild-wood was gone, and awhite light empty of all vision was before him, and as he moved his headthis became the Wolfing meadow, as he had known it so long, and thereat asoft pleasure and joy took hold of him, till again he looked, and sawthere no longer the kine and sheep, and the herd-women tending them, butthe rush and turmoil of that fierce battle, the confused thundering noiseof which was going up to the heavens; for indeed he was now fully awakeagain.

  So he stood up and looked about; and around him was a ring of thesorrowful faces of the warriors, who had deemed that he was hurt deadly,though no hurt could they find upon him. But the Dwarf-wrought Hauberklay upon the ground beside him; for they had taken it off him to look forhis hurts.

  So he looked into their faces and said: "What aileth you, ye men? I amalive and unhurt; what hath betided?"

  And one said: "Art thou verily alive, or a man come back from the dead?We saw thee fall as thou wentest leading us against the foe as if thouhadst been smitten by a thunder-bolt, and we deemed thee dead orgrievously hurt. Now the carles are fighting stoutly, and all is wellsince thou livest yet."

  So he said: "Give me the point and edges that I know, that I may smitemyself therewith and not the foemen; for I have feared and blenched fromthe battle."

  Said an old warrior: "If that be so, Thiodolf, wilt thou blench twice? Isnot once enough? Now let us go back to the hard handplay, and if thouwilt, smite thyself after the battle, when we have once more had a man'shelp of thee."

  Therewith he held out Throng-plough to him by the point, and Thiodolftook hold of the hilts and handled it and said: "Let us hasten, while theGods will have it so, and while they are still suffering me to strike astroke for the kindred."

  And therewith he brandished Throng-plough, and went forth toward thebattle, and the heart grew hot within him, and the joy of waking lifecame back to him, the joy which but erewhile he had given to a meredream.

  But the old man who had rebuked him stooped down and lifted the Hauberkfrom the ground, and cried out after him, "O Thiodolf, and wilt thou gonaked into so strong a fight? and thou with this so goodlysword-rampart?"

  Thiodolf stayed a moment, and even therewith they looked, and lo! theRomans giving back before the Goths and the Goths following up the chase,but slowly and steadily. Then Thiodolf heeded nothing save the battle,but ran forward hastily, and those warriors followed him, the old manlast of all holding the Hauberk in his hand, and muttering:

  "So fares hot blood to the glooming and the world beneath the grass; And the fruit of the Wolfings' orchard in a flash from the world must pass. Men say that the tree shall blossom in the garden of the folk, And the new twig thrust him forward from the place where the old one broke, And all be well as aforetime: but old and old I grow, And I doubt me if such another the folk to come shall know."

  And he still hurried forward as fast as his old body might go, so that hemight wrap the safeguard of the Hauberk round Thiodolf's body.