nneth yet the bitterness is done.
Though my body wendeth barren 'neath the beams of the quickening sun,
Yet remembrance still abideth, and long after the days of my life
Shall I live in the tale of the morning, when they tell of the ending
of strife;
And the deeds of this little hand, and the thought conceived in my
heart,
And never again henceforward from the folk shall I fare apart.
And if of the Earth, my father, thou hast tidings in thy place
Thou shalt hear how they call me the Ransom and the Mother of happy
days."

Then she wept outright for a brief space, and thereafter she said:

"Keep this in thine heart, O father, that I shall remember all
Since thou liftedst the she-wolf's nursling in the oak-tree's leafy
hall.
Yea, every time I remember when hand in hand we went
Amidst the shafts of the beech-trees, and down to the youngling bent
The Folk-wolf in his glory when the eve of fight drew nigh;
And every time I remember when we wandered joyfully
Adown the sunny meadow and lived a while of life
'Midst the herbs and the beasts and the waters so free from fear and
strife,
That thy years and thy might and thy wisdom, I had no part therein;
But thou wert as the twin-born brother of the maiden slim and thin,
The maiden shy in the feast-hall and blithe in wood and field.
Thus have we fared, my father; and e'en now when thou bearest shield,
On the last of thy days of mid-earth, twixt us 'tis even so
That the heart of my like-aged brother is the heart of thee that I
know."

Then the bitterness of tears stayed her speech, and he spake no word
more, but took her in his arms a while and soothed her and fondled her,
and then they parted, and he went with great strides towards the outgoing
of the Thing-stead.

There he found the warriors of his House and of the Bearings and the
lesser Houses of Mid-mark, all duly ordered for wending through the wood.
The dawn was coming on apace, but the wood was yet dark. But whereas the
Wolfings led, and each man of them knew the wood like his own hand, there
was no straying or disarray, and in less than a half-hour's space
Thiodolf and the first battle were come to the wood behind the
hazel-trees at the back of the hall, and before them was the dawning
round about the Roof of the Kindred; the eastern heavens were
brightening, and they could see all things clear without the wood.

CHAPTER XXVIII-