And they wot of the well-grassed meadows, and the acres of the Mark,

And our life amidst of the wild-wood like a candle in the dark;

And they know of our young men’s valour and our women’s loveliness,

And our tree would they spoil with destruction if its fruit they may never possess.

For their lust is without a limit, and nought may satiate

Their ravening maw; and their hunger if ye check it turneth to hate,

And the blood-fever burns in their bosoms, and torment and anguish and woe

O’er the wide field ploughed by the sword-blade for the coming years they sow;

And ruth is a thing forgotten and all hopes they trample down;

And whatso thing is steadfast, whatso of good renown,

Whatso is fair and lovely, whatso is ancient sooth

In the bloody marl shall they mingle as they laugh for lack of ruth.

Lo the curse of the world cometh hither; for the men that we took in the land

Said thus, that their host is gathering with many an ordered band

To fall on the wild-wood passes and flood the lovely Mark,

As the river over the meadows upriseth in the dark.

Look to it, O ye kindred! availeth now no word

But the voice of the clashing of iron, and the sword-blade on the sword.”

  Therewith he made an end, and deeper and longer was the murmur of the host of freemen, amidst which Bork gat him down from the Speech-Hill, his weapons clattering about him, and mingled with the men of his kindred.

  Then came forth a man of the kin of the Shieldings of the Upper-mark, and clomb the mound; and he spake in rhyme from beginning to end; for he was a minstrel of renown:

  “Lo I am a man of the Shieldings and Geirmund is my name;

A half-moon back from the wild-wood out into the hills I came,

And I went alone in my war-gear; for we have affinity

With the Hundings of the Fell-folk, and with them I fain would be;

For I loved a maid of their kindred.  Now their dwelling was not far

From the outermost bounds of the Fell-folk, and bold in the battle they are,

And have met a many people, and held their own abode.

Gay then was the heart within me, as over the hills I rode

And thought of the mirth of to-morrow and the sweet-mouthed Hunding maid

And their old men wise and merry and their young men unafraid,

And the hall-glee of the Hundings and the healths o’er the guesting cup.

But as I rode the valley, I saw a smoke go up

O’er the crest of the last of the grass-hills ’twixt me and the Hunding roof,

And that smoke was black and heavy: so a while I bided aloof,

And drew my girths the tighter, and looked to the arms I bore

And handled my spear for the casting; for my heart misgave me sore,

For nought was that pillar of smoke like the guest-fain cooking-fire.

I lingered in thought for a minute, then turned me to ride up higher,

And as a man most wary up over the bent I rode,

And nigh hid peered o’er the hill-crest adown on the Hunding abode;

And forsooth ’twas the fire wavering all o’er the roof of old,

And all in the garth and about it lay the bodies of the bold;

And bound to a rope amidmost were the women fair and young,

And youths and little children, like the fish on a withy strung

As they lie on the grass for the angler before the beginning of night.

Then the rush of the wrath within me for a while nigh blinded my sight;

Yet about the cowering war-thralls, short dark-faced men I saw,

Men clad in iron armour, this way and that way draw,

As warriors after the battle are ever wont to do.

Then I knew them for the foemen and their deeds to be I knew,

And I gathered the reins together to ride down the hill amain,

To die with a good stroke stricken and slay ere I was slain.

When lo, on the bent before me rose the head of a brown-faced man,

Well helmed and iron-shielded, who some Welsh speech began

And a short sword brandished against me; then my sight cleared and I saw

Five others armed in likewise up hill and toward me draw,

And I shook the spear and sped it and clattering on his shield

He fell and rolled o’er smitten toward the garth and the Fell-folk’s field.

  “But my heart changed with his falling and the speeding of my stroke,

And I turned my horse; for within me the love of life awoke,

And I spurred, nor heeded the hill-side, but o’er rough and smooth I rode

Till I heard no chase behind me; then I drew rein and abode.

And down in a dell was I gotten with a thorn-brake in its throat,

And heard but the plover’s whistle and the blackbird’s broken note

’Mid the thorns; when lo! from a thorn-twig away the blackbird swept,

And out from the brake and towards me a naked man there crept,

And straight I rode up towards him, and knew his face for one

I had seen in the hall of the Hundings ere its happy days were done.

I asked him his tale, but he bade me forthright to bear him away;

So I took him up behind me, and we rode till late in the day,

Toward the cover of the wild-wood, and as swiftly as we might.

But when yet aloof was the thicket and it now was moonless night,

We stayed perforce for a little, and he told me all the tale:

How the aliens came against them, and they fought without avail

Till the Roof o’er their heads was burning and they burst forth on the foe,