ouds are empty:
Soon the man in the West shall receive our message.

(JOFRID'S _voice joins the other voices._)

Men reject us, yet their house is unstable.
The slayers' hands are warm--the sound of their riding
Reached us down the ages, ever approaching.

HALLGERD (_at the same time, her voice high over theirs_)
Pack, ye rag-heaps--or I'll unravel you.

THE THREE (_continuously_)
House that spurns us, woe shall come upon you:
Death shall hollow you. Now we curse the woman--
May all the woes smite her till she can feel them.
Shall we not roost in her bower yet? Woe! Woe!

(_The distaff breaks, and HALLGERD drives them out with her hands.
Their voices continue for a moment outside, dying away._)

Call to the owl-friends.... Woe! Woe! Woe!

ASTRID
Whence came these mounds of dread to haunt the night?
It doubles this disquiet to have them near us.

ODDNY
They must be witches--and it was my distaff--
Will fire eat through me....

STEINVOR
Or the Norns themselves.

HALLGERD
Or bad old women used to govern by fear.
To bed, to bed--we are all up too late.

STEINVOR (_as she turns with ASTRID and ODDNY to the dais_)
If beds are made for sleep we might sit long.

(_They go out by the dais door._)

GUNNAR (_as he enters hastily from the left_)
Where are those women? There's some secret in them:
I have heard such others crying down to them.

HALLGERD
They turned foul-mouthed, they beckoned evil toward us--
I drove them forth a breath ago.

GUNNAR
Forth? Whence?

HALLGERD
By the great door: they cried about the night.

(RANNVEIG _follows_ GUNNAR _in._)

GUNNAR
Nay, but I entered there and passed them not.
Mother, where are the women?

RANNVEIG
I saw none come.

GUNNAR
They have not come, they have gone.

RANNVEIG
I crossed the yard,
Hearing a noise, but a big bird dropped past,
Beating my eyes; and then the yard was clear.

(_The deep baying of the hound is heard again._)

GUNNAR
They must be