the flower of all fame.
Come hither new Glory, come Crown of the Name!'"

All men's hearts rose high as he sang, and when he had ended arose the
clang of sword and shield and went ringing down the meadow, and the
mighty shout of the Markmen's joy rent the heavens: for in sooth at that
moment they saw Thiodolf, their champion, sitting among the Gods on his
golden chair, sweet savours around him, and sweet sound of singing, and
he himself bright-faced and merry as no man on earth had seen him, for as
joyous a man as he was.

But when the sound of their exultation sank down, the Hall-Sun spake
again:

"Now wendeth the sun westward, and weary grows the Earth
Of all the long day's doings in sorrow and in mirth;
And as the great sun waneth, so doth my candle wane,
And its flickering flame desireth to rest and die again.
Therefore across the meadows wend we aback once more
To the holy Roof of the Wolfings, the shrine of peace and war.
And these that once have loved us, these warriors images,
Shall sit amidst our feasting, and see, as the Father sees
The works that men-folk fashion and the rest of toiling hands,
When his eyes look down from the mountains and the heavens above all
lands,
And up from the flowery meadows and the rolling deeps of the sea.
There then at the feast with our champions familiar shall we be
As oft we are with the Godfolk, when in story-rhymes and lays
We laugh as we tell of their laughter, and their deeds of other days.

"Come then, ye sons of the kindreds who hither bore these twain!
Take up their beds of glory, and fare we home again,
And feast as men delivered from toil unmeet to bear,
Who through the night are looking to the dawn-tide fresh and fair
And the morn and the noon to follow, and the eve and its morrow morn,
All the life of our deliv'rance and the fair days yet unborn."

So she spoke, and a murmur arose as those valiant men came forth again.
But lo, now were they dight in fresh and fair raiment and gleaming war-
array. For while all this was a-doing and a-saying, they had gotten them
by the Hall-Sun's bidding unto the wains of their Houses, and had arrayed
them from the store therein.

So now they took up the biers, and the Hall-Sun led them, and they went
over the meadow before the throng of the kindreds, who followed them duly
ordered, each House about its banner; and when they were come through the
garth which th