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 Isaw 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 Irode 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, And were hewn down there together; nor yet was the slaughter slow.
But some they saved for thralldom, yea, e'en of the fighting men, Or to quell them with pains; so they stripped them; and this man espying just then Some chance, I mind not whatwise, from the garth fled out and away.
"Now many a thing noteworthy of these aliens did he say, But this I bid you hearken, lest I wear the time for nought, That still upon the Markmen and the Mark they set their thought;For they questioned this man and others through a go-between in words Of us, and our lands and our chattels, and the number of our swords;Of the way and the wild-wood passes and the winter and his ways.
Now look to see them shortly; for worn are fifteen days Since in the garth of the Hundings I saw them dight for war, And a hardy folk and ready and a swift-foot host they are."Therewith Geirmund went down clattering from the Hill and stood with his company. But a man came forth from the other side of the ring, and clomb the Hill: he was a red-haired man, rather big, clad in a skin coat, and bearing a bow in his hand and a quiver of arrows at his back, and a little axe hung by his side. He said:
"I dwell in the House of the Hrossings of the Mid-mark, and I am now made a man of the kindred: howbeit I was not born into it; for I am the son of a fair and mighty woman of a folk of the Kymry, who was taken in war while she went big with me; I am called Fox the Red.
"These Romans have I seen, and have not died: so hearken! for my tale shall be short for what there is in it.
"I am, as many know, a hunter of Mirkwood, and I know all its ways and the passes through the thicket somewhat better than most.
"A moon ago I fared afoot from Mid-mark through Upper-mark into the thicket of the south, and through it into the heath country; and Iwent over a neck and came in the early dawn into a little dale when somewhat of mist still hung over it. At the dale's end I saw a man lying asleep on the grass under a quicken tree, and his shield and sword hanging over his head to a bough thereof, and his horse feeding hoppled higher up the dale.
