ce I am once more Thiodolf the Mighty, in my heart there
is room for joy also. Look at me, O Wood-Sun, look at me, O beloved!
tell me, am I not fair with the fairness of the warrior and the helper of
the folk? Is not my voice kind, do not my lips smile, and mine eyes
shine? See how steady is mine hand, the friend of the folk! For mine
eyes are cleared again, and I can see the kindreds as they are, and their
desire of life and scorn of death, and this is what they have made me
myself. Now therefore shall they and I together earn the merry days to
come, the winter hunting and the spring sowing, the summer haysel, the
ingathering of harvest, the happy rest of midwinter, and Yuletide with
the memory of the Fathers, wedded to the hope of the days to be. Well
may they bid me help them who have holpen me! Well may they bid me die
who have made me live!

"For whereas thou sayest that I am not of their blood, nor of their
adoption, once more I heed it not. For I have lived with them, and eaten
and drunken with them, and toiled with them, and led them in battle and
the place of wounds and slaughter; they are mine and I am theirs; and
through them am I of the whole earth, and all the kindreds of it; yea,
even of the foemen, whom this day the edges in mine hand shall smite.

"Therefore I will bear the Hauberk no more in battle; and belike my body
but once more: so shall I have lived and death shall not have undone me.

"Lo thou, is not this the Thiodolf whom thou hast loved? no changeling of
the Gods, but the man in whom men have trusted, the friend of Earth, the
giver of life, the vanquisher of death?"

And he cast himself upon her, and strained her to his bosom and kissed
her, and caressed her, and awoke the bitter-sweet joy within her, as he
cried out:

"O remember this, and this, when at last I am gone from thee!"

But when they sundered her face was bright, but the tears were on it, and
she said: "O Thiodolf, thou wert fain hadst thou done a wrong to me so
that I might forgive thee; now wilt thou forgive me the wrong I have done
thee?"

"Yea," he said, "Even so would I do, were we both to live, and how much
more if this be the dawn of our sundering day! What hast thou done?"

She said: "I lied to thee concerning the Hauberk when I said that no evil
weird went with it: and this I did for the saving of thy life."

He laid his hand fondly on her head, and spake smiling: "Such is the wont
of the God-kin, because