So when their company drew anear to the throng of the stay-at-homes they went to meet and greet each other, and tell tidings to each other; but their banner held steadily onward amidst their converse, and in a little while they followed it, for the way was long to the Thing-stead of the Upper-mark.

  So passed away the fighting men by the side of Mirkwood-water, and the throng of the stay-at-homes melted slowly from the meadow and trickled along through the acres to the habitations of the Wolfings, and there they fell to doing whatso of work or play came to their hands.

  CHAPTER V—CONCERNING THE HALL-SUN

  When the warriors and the others had gone down to the mead, the Hall-Sun was left standing on the Hill of Speech, and she stood there till she saw the host in due array going on its ways dark and bright and beautiful; then she made as if to turn aback to the Great Roof; but all at once it seemed to her as if something held her back, as if her will to move had departed from her, and that she could not put one foot before the other.  So she lingered on the Hill, and the quenched candle fell from her hand, and presently she sank adown on the grass and sat there with the face of one thinking intently.  Yet was it with her that a thousand thoughts were in her mind at once and no one of them uppermost, and images of what had been and what then was flickered about in her brain, and betwixt them were engendered images of things to be, but unstable and not to be trowed in.  So sat the Hall-Sun on the Hill of Speech lost in a dream of the day, whose stories were as little clear as those of a night-dream.

  But as she sat musing thus, came to her a woman exceeding old to look on, whom she knew not as one of the kindred or a thrall; and this carline greeted her by the name of Hall-Sun and said:

  “Hail, Hall-Sun of the Markmen! how fares it now with thee

When the whelps of the Woodbeast wander with the Leafage of the Tree

All up the Mirkwood-water to seek what they shall find,

The oak-boles of the battle and the war-wood stark and blind?”

  Then answered the maiden:

  “It fares with me, O mother, that my soul would fain go forth

To behold the ways of the battle, and the praise of the warriors’ worth.

But yet is it held entangled in a maze of many a thing,

As the low-grown bramble holdeth the brake-shoots of the Spring.

I think of the thing that hath been, but no shape is in my thought;

I think of the day that passeth, and its story comes to nought.

I think of the days that shall be, nor shape I any tale.

I will hearken thee, O mother, if hearkening may avail.”

  The Carline gazed at her with dark eyes that shone brightly from amidst her brown wrinkled face: then she sat herself down beside her and spake:

  “From a far folk have I wandered and I come of an alien blood,

But I know all tales of the Wolfings and their evil and their good;

And when I heard of thy fairness, thereof I heard it said,

That for thee should be never a bridal nor a place in the warrior’s bed.”

  The maiden neither reddened nor paled, but looking with calm steady eyes into the Carline’s face she answered:

  “Yea true it is, I am wedded to the mighty ones of old,

And the fathers of the Wolfings ere the days of field and fold.”

  Then a smile came into the eyes of the old woman and she said.

  “How glad shall be thy mother of thy worship and thy worth,

And the father that begat thee if yet they dwell on earth!”

  But the Hall-Sun answered in the same steady manner as before:

  “None knoweth who is my mother, nor my very father’s name;

But when to the House of the Wolfings a wild-wood waif I came,

They gave me a foster-mother an ancient dame and good,

And a glorious foster-father the best of all the blood.”

  Spake the Carline.

  “Yea, I have heard the story, but scarce therein might I trow

That thou with all thy beauty wert born ’neath the oaken bough,

And hast crawled a naked baby o’er the rain-drenched autumn-grass;

Wilt thou tell the wandering woman what wise it cometh to pass

That thou art the Mid-mark’s Hall-Sun, and the sign of the Wolfings’ gain?

Thou shalt pleasure me much by the telling, and there of shalt thou be fain.”

  Then answered the Hall-Sun.

  “Yea; thus much I remember for the first of my memories;

That I lay on the grass in the morning and above were the boughs of the trees.

But nought naked was I as the wood-whelp, but clad in linen white,

And adown the glades of the oakwood the morning sun lay bright.

Then a hind came out of the thicket and stood on the sunlit glade,

And turned her head toward the oak tree and a step on toward me made.

Then stopped, and bounded aback, and away as if in fear,

That I saw her no more; then I wondered, though sitting close anear

Was a she-wolf great and grisly.  But with her was I wont to play,

And pull her ears, and belabour her rugged sides and grey,

And hold her jaws together, while she whimpered, slobbering

For the love of my love; and nowise I deemed her a fearsome thing.

There she sat as though she were watching, and o’er head a blue-winged jay

Shrieked out from the topmost oak-twigs, and a squirrel ran his way

Two tree-trunks off.  But the she-wolf arose up suddenly

And growled with her neck-fell bristling, as if danger drew anigh;

And therewith I heard a footstep, for nice was my ear to catch

All the noises of the wild-wood; so there did we sit at watch

While the sound of feet grew nigher: then I clapped hand on hand

And crowed for joy and gladness, for there out in the sun did stand

A man, a glorious creature with a gleaming helm on his head,

And gold rings on his arms, in raiment gold-broidered crimson-red.

Straightway he strode up toward us nor heeded the wolf of the wood

But sang as he went in the oak-glade, as a man whose thought is good,

And nought she heeded the warrior, but tame as a sheep was grown,

And trotted away through the wild-wood with her crest all laid adown.