House of the Wolfings: The William Morris Book that Inspired J. R. R. Tolkiena *s The Lord of the Rings (5 page)

“O Wood-Sun,” he said “thou art the treasure
of life that I found when I was young, and the love of life that I
hold, now that my beard is grizzling. Since when did I fear thee,
Wood-Sun? Did I fear thee when first I saw thee, and we stood
amidst the hazelled field, we twain living amongst the slain? But
my sword was red with the blood of the foe, and my raiment with
mine own blood; and I was a-weary with the day’s work, and sick
with many strokes, and methought I was fainting into death. And
there thou wert before me, full of life and ruddy and smiling both
lips and eyes; thy raiment clean and clear, thine hands unstained
with blood: then didst thou take me by my bloody and weary hand,
and didst kiss my lips grown ashen pale, and thou saidst ‘Come with
me.’ And I strove to go, and might not; so many and sore were my
hurts. Then amidst my sickness and my weariness was I merry; for I
said to myself, This is the death of the warrior, and it is
exceeding sweet. What meaneth it? Folk said of me; he is over young
to meet the foeman; yet am I not over young to die?”

Therewith he laughed out amid the wild-wood,
and his speech became song, and he said:

We wrought in the ring of the hazels, and
the wine of war we drank:

From the tide when the sun stood highest to
the hour wherein she sank:

And three kings came against me, the
mightiest of the Huns,

The evil-eyed in battle, the swift-foot wily
ones;

And they gnashed their teeth against me, and
they gnawed on the shield-rims there,

On that afternoon of summer, in the
high-tide of the year.

Keen-eyed I gazed about me, and I saw the
clouds draw up

Till the heavens were dark as the hollow of
a wine-stained iron cup,

And the wild-deer lay unfeeding on the grass
of the forest glades,

And all earth was scared with the thunder
above our clashing blades.

Then sank a King before me, and on fell the
other twain,

And I tossed up the reddened sword-blade in
the gathered rush of the rain

And the blood and the water blended, and
fragrant grew the earth.

There long I turned and twisted within the
battle-girth

Before those bears of onset: while out from
the grey world streamed

The broad red lash of the lightening and in
our byrnies gleamed.

And long I leapt and laboured in that
garland of the fight

’Mid the blue blades and the lightening; but
ere the sky grew light

The second of the Hun-kings on the
rain-drenched daisies lay;

And we twain with the battle blinded a
little while made stay,

And leaning on our sword-hilts each on the
other gazed.

Then the rain grew less, and one corner of
the veil of clouds was raised,

And as from the broidered covering gleams
out the shoulder white

Of the bed-mate of the warrior when on his
wedding night

He layeth his hand to the linen; so, down
there in the west

Gleamed out the naked heaven: but the wrath
rose up in my breast,

And the sword in my hand rose with it, and I
leaped and hewed at the Hun;

And from him too flared the war-flame, and
the blades danced bright in the sun

Come back to the earth for a little before
the ending of day.

There then with all that was in him did the
Hun play out the play,

Till he fell, and left me tottering, and I
turned my feet to wend

To the place of the mound of the mighty, the
gate of the way without end.

And there thou wert. How was it, thou
Chooser of the Slain,

Did I die in thine arms, and thereafter did
thy mouth-kiss wake me again?

Ere the last sound of his voice was done she
turned and kissed him; and then she said; “Never hadst thou a fear
and thine heart is full of hardihood.”

Then he said:

’Tis the hardy heart, beloved, that keepeth
me alive,

As the king-leek in the garden by the rain
and the sun doth thrive,

So I thrive by the praise of the people; it
is blent with my drink and my meat;

As I slumber in the night-tide it laps me
soft and sweet;

And through the chamber window when I waken
in the morn

With the wind of the sun’s arising from the
meadow is it borne

And biddeth me remember that yet I live on
earth:

Then I rise and my might is with me, and
fills my heart with mirth,

As I think of the praise of the people; and
all this joy I win

By the deeds that my heart commandeth and
the hope that lieth therein.

“Yea,” she said, “but day runneth ever on
the heels of day, and there are many and many days; and betwixt
them do they carry eld.”

“Yet art thou no older than in days bygone,”
said he. “Is it so, O Daughter of the Gods, that thou wert never
born, but wert from before the framing of the mountains, from the
beginning of all things?”

But she said:

Nay, nay; I began, I was born; although it
may be indeed

That not on the hills of the earth I sprang
from the godhead’s seed.

And e’en as my birth and my waxing shall be
my waning and end.

But thou on many an errand, to many a field
dost wend

Where the bow at adventure bended, or the
fleeing dastard’s spear

Oft lulleth the mirth of the mighty. Now me
thou dost not fear,

Yet fear with me, beloved, for the mighty
Maid I fear;

And Doom is her name, and full often she
maketh me afraid

And even now meseemeth on my life her hand
is laid.

But he laughed and said:

In what land is she abiding? Is she near or
far away?

Will she draw up close beside me in the
press of the battle play?

And if then I may not smite her ’midst the
warriors of the field

With the pale blade of my fathers, will she
bide the shove of my shield?

But sadly she sang in answer:

In many a stead Doom dwelleth, nor sleepeth
day nor night:

The rim of the bowl she kisseth, and beareth
the chambering light

When the kings of men wend happy to the
bride-bed from the board.

It is little to say that she wendeth the
edge of the grinded sword,

When about the house half builded she
hangeth many a day;

The ship from the strand she shoveth, and on
his wonted way

By the mountain-hunter fareth where his foot
ne’er failed before:

She is where the high bank crumbles at last
on the river’s shore:

The mower’s scythe she whetteth; and lulleth
the shepherd to sleep

Where the deadly ling-worm wakeneth in the
desert of the sheep.

Now we that come of the God-kin of her redes
for ourselves we wot,

But her will with the lives of men-folk and
their ending know we not.

So therefore I bid thee not fear for thyself
of Doom and her deed,

But for me: and I bid thee hearken to the
helping of my need.

Or else—Art thou happy in life, or lusteth
thou to die

In the flower of thy days, when thy glory
and thy longing bloom on high?

But Thiodolf answered her:

I have deemed, and long have I deemed that
this is my second life,

That my first one waned with my wounding
when thou cam’st to the ring of strife.

For when in thine arms I wakened on the
hazelled field of yore,

Meseemed I had newly arisen to a world I
knew no more,

So much had all things brightened on that
dewy dawn of day.

It was dark dull death that I looked for
when my thought had died away.

It was lovely life that I woke to; and from
that day henceforth

My joy of the life of man-folk was
manifolded of worth.

Far fairer the fields of the morning than I
had known them erst,

And the acres where I wended, and the corn
with its half-slaked thirst;

And the noble Roof of the Wolfings, and the
hawks that sat thereon;

And the bodies of my kindred whose
deliverance I had won;

And the glimmering of the Hall-Sun in the
dusky house of old;

And my name in the mouth of the maidens, and
the praises of the bold,

As I sat in my battle-raiment, and the ruddy
spear well steeled

Leaned ’gainst my side war-battered, and the
wounds thine hand had healed.

Yea, from that morn thenceforward has my
life been good indeed,

The gain of to-day was goodly, and good
to-morrow’s need,

And good the whirl of the battle, and the
broil I wielded there,

Till I fashioned the ordered onset, and the
unhoped victory fair.

And good were the days thereafter of utter
deedless rest

And the prattle of thy daughter, and her
hands on my unmailed breast.

Ah good is the life thou hast given, the
life that mine hands have won.

And where shall be the ending till the world
is all undone?

Here sit we twain together, and both we in
Godhead clad,

We twain of the Wolfing kindred, and each of
the other glad.

But she answered, and her face grew darker
withal:

O mighty man and joyous, art thou of the
Wolfing kin?

’Twas no evil deed when we mingled, nor
lieth doom therein.

Thou lovely man, thou black-haired, thou
shalt die and have done no ill.

Fame-crowned are 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
abundance of fair things;

And ’mid these, nor worser nor better, but
builded otherwise

Stand the Houses of the Fathers, and the
hidden mysteries.

And as close as are the tree-trunks that
within the beech-wood thrive

E’en so many are their pillars; and therein
like men alive

Stand the images of god-folk in such raiment
as they wore

In the years before the cities and the
hidden days of yore.

Ah for the gold that I gazed on! and their
store of battle gear,

And strange engines that I knew not, or the
end for which they were.

Ah for the ordered wisdom of the war-array
of these,

And the folks that are sitting about them in
dumb down-trodden peace!

So I thought now fareth war-ward my
well-beloved friend,

And the weird of the Gods hath doomed it
that no more with him may I wend!

Woe’s me for the war of the Wolfings
wherefrom I am sundered apart,

And the fruitless death of the war-wise, and
the doom of the hardy heart!”

Then he answered, and his eyes grew kind as
he looked on her:

For thy fair love I thank thee, and thy
faithful word, O friend!

But how might it otherwise happen but we
twain must meet in the end,

The God of this mighty people and the
Markmen and their kin?

Lo, this is the weird of the world, and what
may we do herein?

Then mirth came into her face again as she
said:

“Who wotteth of Weird, and what she is till
the weird is accomplished? Long hath it been my weird to love thee
and to fashion deeds for thee as I may; nor will I depart from it
now.” And she sang:

Keen-edged is the sword of the city, and
bitter is its spear,

But thy breast in the battle, beloved, hath
a wall of the stithy’s gear.

What now is thy wont in the handplay with
the helm and the hauberk of rings?