m the songs which our House
yet singeth, and which ye have heard wide about in the Mark; for this is
the same folk of which a many of them tell, making up that story-lay
which is called the South-Welsh Lay; which telleth how we have met this
folk in times past when we were in fellowship with a folk of the Welsh of
like customs to ourselves: for we of the Elkings were then but a feeble
folk. So we marched with this folk of the Kymry and met the men of the
cities, and whiles we overthrew and whiles were overthrown, but at last
in a great battle were overthrown with so great a slaughter, that the red
blood rose over the wheels of the wains, and the city-folk fainted with
the work of the slaughter, as men who mow a match in the meadows when the
swathes are dry and heavy and the afternoon of midsummer is hot; and
there they stood and stared on the field of the slain, and knew not
whether they were in Home or Hell, so fierce the fight had been."

Therewith a man of the Beamings, who was riding on the other side of the
Elking, reached out over his horse's neck and said:

"Yea friend, but is there not some telling of a tale concerning how ye
and your fellowship took the great city of the Welshmen of the South, and
dwelt there long."

"Yea," said the Elking, "Hearken how it is told in the South-Welsh Lay:

"'Have ye not heard
Of the ways of Weird?
How the folk fared forth
Far away from the North?
And as light as one wendeth
Whereas the wood endeth,
When of nought is our need,
And none telleth our deed,
So Rodgeir unwearied and Reidfari wan
The town where none tarried the shield-shaking man.
All lonely the street there, and void was the way
And nought hindered our feet but the dead men that lay
Under shield in the lanes of the houses heavens-high,
All the ring-bearing swains that abode there to die.'

"Tells the Lay, that none abode the Goths and their fellowship, but such
as were mighty enough to fall before them, and the rest, both man and
woman, fled away before our folk and before the folk of the Kymry, and
left their town for us to dwell in; as saith the Lay:

"'Glistening of gold
Did men's eyen behold;
Shook the pale sword
O'er the unspoken word,
No man drew nigh us
With weapon to try us,
For the Welsh-wrought shield
Lay low on the field.
By man's hand unbuilded all seemed there to be,
The