at pileth clouds before,
On either hand what gathereth save the stormy tide of war?
Now grows midsummer mirky, and fallow falls the morn,
And dusketh the Moon's Sister, and the trees look overworn;
God's Ash tree shakes and shivers, and the sheer cliff standeth white
As the bones of the giants' father when the Gods first fared to
fight."

And indeed the morning had grown mirky and grey and threatening, and from
far away the thunder growled, and the face of the Kite's Nest showed pale
and awful against a dark steely cloud; and a few drops of rain pattered
into the smooth water before them from a rag of the cloud-flock right
over head. They were in mid stream now, for the water was wide there; on
the eastern bank were the warriors gathering, for they had beheld the
faring of those men, and the voice of Wolfkettle came to them across the
water, so they deemed that great tidings were toward, and would fain know
on what errand those were come.

Then the waters of the ford deepened till Hiarandi was wading more than
waist-deep, and the water flowed over Geirbald's saddle; then Wolfkettle
laughed, and turning as he sat, dragged out his sword, and waved it from
east to west and sang:

"O sun, pale up in heaven, shrink from us if thou wilt,
And turn thy face from beholding the shock of guilt with guilt!
Stand still, O blood of summer! and let the harvest fade,
Till there be nought but fallow where once was bloom and blade!
O day, give out but a glimmer of all thy flood of light,
If it be but enough for our eyen to see the road of fight!
Forget all else and slumber, if still ye let us wake,
And our mouths shall make the thunder, and our swords shall the
lightening make,
And we shall be the storm-wind and drive the ruddy rain,
Till the joy of our hearts in battle bring back the day again."

As he spake that word they came up through the shallow water dripping on
to the bank, and they and the men who abode them on the bank shouted
together for joy of fellowship, and all tossed aloft their weapons. The
man who had ridden behind Viglund slipped off on to the ground; but
Wolfkettle abode in his place behind Geirbald.

So the messengers passed on, and the others closed up round about them,
and all the throng went up to where Thiodolf was sitting on a rock
beneath a sole ash-tree, the face of the Kite's Nest rising behind him on
the other side of a bight of the river. There he