re the deeds of thy doing, and the mouths of men they
fill.
Thou betterer of the Godfolk, enduring is thy fame:
Yet as a painted image of a dream is thy dreaded name.
Of an alien folk thou comest, that we twain might be one indeed.
Thou shalt die one day. So hearken, to help me at my need."

His face grew troubled and he said: "What is this word that I am no chief
of the Wolfings?"

"Nay," she said, "but better than they. Look thou on the face of our
daughter the Hall-Sun, thy daughter and mine: favoureth she at all of
me?"

He laughed: "Yea, whereas she is fair, but not otherwise. This is a hard
saying, that I dwell among an alien kindred, and it wotteth not thereof.
Why hast thou not told me hereof before?"

She said: "It needed not to tell thee because thy day was waxing, as now
it waneth. Once more I bid thee hearken and do my bidding though it be
hard to thee."

He answered: "Even so will I as much as I may; and thus wise must thou
look upon it, that I love life, and fear not death."

Then she spake, and again her words fell into rhyme:

"In forty fights hast thou foughten, and been worsted but in four;
And I looked on and was merry; and ever more and more
Wert thou dear to the heart of the Wood-Sun, and the Chooser of the
Slain.
But now whereas ye are wending with slaughter-herd and wain
To meet a folk that ye know not, a wonder, a peerless foe,
I fear for thy glory's waning, and I see thee lying alow."

Then he brake in: "Herein is little shame to be worsted by the might of
the mightiest: if this so mighty folk sheareth a limb off the tree of my
fame, yet shall it wax again."

But she sang:

"In forty fights hast thou foughten, and beside thee who but I
Beheld the wind-tossed banners, and saw the aspen fly?
But to-day to thy war I wend not, for Weird withholdeth me
And sore my heart forebodeth for the battle that shall be.
To-day with thee I wend not; so I feared, and lo my feet,
That are wont to the woodland girdle of the acres of the wheat,
For thee among strange people and the foeman's throng have trod,
And I tell thee their banner of battle is a wise and a mighty God.
For these are the folk of the cities, and in wondrous wise they dwell
'Mid confusion of heaped houses, dim and black as the face of hell;
Though therefrom rise roofs most goodly, where their captains and
their kings
Dwell amidst the walls of marble in