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 he
might wrap the safeguard of the Hauberk round Thiodolf's body.

CHAPTER XXIV--THE GOTHS ARE OVERTHROWN BY THE ROMANS

Now rose up a mighty shout when Thiodolf came back to the battle of the
kindreds, for many thought he had been slain; and they gathered round
about him, and cried out to him joyously out of their hearts of
good-fellowship, and the old man who had rebuked Thiodolf, and who was
Jorund of the Wolfings, came up to him and reached out to him the
Hauberk, and he did it on scarce heeding; for all his heart and soul was
turned toward the battle of the Romans and what they were a-doing; and he
saw that they were falling back in good order, as men out-numbered, but
undismayed. So he gathered all his men together and ordered them afresh;
for they were somewhat disarrayed with the fray and the chase: and now he
no longer ordered them in the wedge array, but in a line here three deep,
here five deep, or more, for the foes were hard at hand, and outnumbered,
and so far overcome, that he and all men deemed it a little matter to
give these their last overthrow, and then onward to Wolf-stead to storm
on what was left there and purge the house of the foemen. Howbeit
Thiodolf bethought him that succour might come to the Romans from their
main-battle, as they needed not many men there, since there was nought to
fear behind them: but the thought was dim within him, for once more since
he had gotten the Hauberk on him the earth was wavering and dream-like:
he looked about him, and nowise was he as in past days of battle when he
saw nought but the foe before him, and hoped for nothing save the
victory. But now indeed the Wood-Sun seemed to him to be beside him, and
not against his will, as one besetting and hindering him, but as though
his own longing had drawn her thither and would not let her depart; and
whiles it seemed to him that her beauty was clearer to be seen than the
bodies of the warriors round about him. For the rest he seemed t