horse, and departed a great gallop
to the south. Then said Asmund:

"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 XVII--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