nger, as a lonely waif therein;
And I wrought as a child with my playmates and every hour looked on
Unto the next hour's joyance till the happy day was done.
And going and coming amidst us was a woman tall and thin
With hair like the hoary barley and silver streaks therein.
And kind and sad of visage, as now I remember me,
And she sat and told us stories when we were aweary with glee,
And many of us she fondled, but me the most of all.
And once from my sleep she waked me and bore me down the hall,
In the hush of the very midnight, and I was feared thereat.
But she brought me unto the dais, and there the warrior sat,
Who took me up and kissed me, as erst within the wood;
And meseems in his arms I slumbered: but I wakened again and stood
Alone with the kindly woman, and gone was the goodly man,
And athwart the hush of the Folk-hall the moon shone bright and wan,
And the woman dealt with a lamp hung up by a chain aloft,
And she trimmed it and fed it with oil, while she chanted sweet and
soft
A song whose words I knew not: then she ran it up again,
And up in the darkness above us died the length of its wavering
chain."

"Yea," said the carline, "this woman will have been the Hall-Sun that
came before thee. What next dost thou remember?"

Said the maiden:

"Next I mind me of the hazels behind the People's Roof,
And the children running thither and the magpie flitting aloof,
And my hand in the hand of the Hall-Sun, as after the others we went,
And she soberly hearkening my prattle and the words of my intent.
And now would I call her 'Mother,' and indeed I loved her well.

"So I waxed; and now of my memories the tale were long to tell;
But as the days passed over, and I fared to field and wood,
Alone or with my playmates, still the days were fair and good.
But the sad and kindly Hall-Sun for my fosterer now I knew,
And the great and glorious warrior that my heart clung sorely to
Was but my foster-father; and I knew that I had no kin
In the ancient House of the Wolfings, though love was warm therein."

Then smiled the carline and said: "Yea, he is thy foster-father, and yet
a fond one."

"Sooth is that," said the Hall-Sun. "But wise art thou by seeming. Hast
thou come to tell me of what kindred I am, and who is my father and who
is my mother?"

Said the carline: "Art thou not also wise? Is it not so that the Hall-
Sun