than breath and lies.
These women will tell the mistress all I grant you;
Get to the fire until she shall return.

BIARTEY
Thou art a merciful man and we shall thank thee.

(GUNNAR _goes out again to the left. The old women approach the
young ones gradually._)
Little ones, do not doubt us. Could we hurt you?
Because we are ugly must we be bewitched?

STEINVOR
Nay, but bewitch us.

BIARTEY
Not in a litten house:
Not ere the hour when night turns on itself
And shakes the silence: not while ye wake together.
Sweet voice, tell us, was that verily Gunnar?

STEINVOR
Arrh--do not touch me, unclean flyer-by-night:
Have ye birds' feet to match such bat-webbed fingers?

BIARTEY
I am only a cowed curst woman who walks with death;
I will crouch here. Tell us, was it Gunnar?

ODDNY
Yea, Gunnar surely. Is he not big enough
To fit the songs about him?

BIARTEY
He is a man.
Why will his manhood urge him to be dead?
We walk about the whole old land at night,
We enter many dales and many halls:
And everywhere is talk of Gunnar's greatness,
His slayings and his fate outside the law.
The last ship has not gone: why will he tarry?

ODDNY
He chose a ship, but men who rode with him
Say that his horse threw him upon the shore,
His face toward the Lithe and his own fields;
As he arose he trembled at what he gazed on
(_Although those men saw nothing pass or meet them_)
And said ... What said he, girls?

ASTRID
"Fair is the Lithe:
I never thought it was so far, so fair.
Its corn is white, its meadows green after mowing.
I will ride home again and never leave it."

ODDNY
'Tis an unlikely tale: he never said it.
No one could mind such things in such an hour.
Plainly he saw his fetch come down the sands,
And knew he need not seek another country
And take that with him to walk upon the deck
In night and storm.

GUDFINN
He, he, he! No man speaks thus.

JOFRID
No man, no man: he must be doomed somewhere.

BIARTEY
Doomed and fey, my sisters.... We a