ed them: but by this evening they will
need me no more, or but little; for they will be victorious over their
foes: so hath the Hall-Sun foretold. What then! shall I take all from
thee to give little to them?"

"Thou art wise," she said; "Wilt thou go to battle to-day?"

"So it seemeth," said he.

She said: "And wilt thou bear the Dwarf-wrought Hauberk? for if thou
dost, thou wilt live, and if thou dost not, thou wilt die."

"I will bear it," said he, "that I may live to love thee."

"Thinkest thou that any evil goes with it?" said she.

There came into his face a flash of his ancient boldness as he answered:
"So it seemed to me yesterday, when I fought clad in it the first time;
and I fell unsmitten on the meadow, and was shamed, and would have slain
myself but for thee. And yet it is not so that any evil goes with it;
for thou thyself didst say that past night that there was no evil weird
in it."

She said: "How then if I lied that night?"

Said he; "It is the wont of the Gods to lie, and be unashamed, and men-
folk must bear with it."

"Ah! how wise thou art!" she said; and was silent for a while, and drew
away from him a little, and clasped her hands together and wrung them for
grief and anger. Then she grew calm again, and said:

"Wouldest thou die at my bidding?"

"Yea," said he, "not because thou art of the Gods, but because thou hast
become a woman to me, and I love thee."

Then was she silent some while, and at last she said, "Thiodolf, wilt
thou do off the Hauberk if I bid thee?"

"Yea, yea," said he, "and let us depart from the Wolfings, and their
strife, for they need us not."

She was silent once more for a longer while still, and at last she said
in a cold voice; "Thiodolf, I bid thee arise, and put off the Hauberk
from thee."

He looked at her wondering, not at her words, but at the voice wherewith
she spake them; but he arose from the stone nevertheless, and stood stark
in the moonlight; he set his hand to the collar of the war-coat, and
undid its clasps, which were of gold and blue stones, and presently he
did the coat from off him and let it slide to the ground where it lay in
a little grey heap that looked but a handful. Then he sat down on the
stone again, and took her hand and kissed her and caressed her fondly,
and she him again, and they spake no word for a while: but at the last he
spake in measure and rhyme in a low voice, but so sweet and clear that it
might have been hea