The House of the Wolfings | Page 5

Suddenly they who were on the edges of those throngs and were the
less noisy, held themselves as if to listen; and a group that had gathered
about a minstrel to hear his story fell hearkening also round about the
silenced and hearkening tale-teller: some of the dancers and singers
noted them and in their turn stayed the dance and kept silence to
hearken; and so from group to group spread the change, till all were
straining their ears to hearken the tidings. Already the men of the
night-shift had heard it, and the shepherds of them had turned about,
and were trotting smartly back through the lanes of the tall wheat: but
the horse-herds were now scarce seen on the darkening meadow, as
they galloped on fast toward their herds to drive home the stallions. For
what they had heard was the tidings of war.
There was a sound in the air as of a humble-bee close to the ear of one
lying on a grassy bank; or whiles as of a cow afar in the meadow
lowing in the afternoon when milking-time draws nigh: but it was ever
shriller than the one, and fuller than the other; for it changed at whiles,

though after the first sound of it, it did not rise or fall, because the eve
was windless. You might hear at once that for all it was afar, it was a
great and mighty sound; nor did any that hearkened doubt what it was,
but all knew it for the blast of the great war-horn of the Elkings, whose
Roof lay up Mirkwood-water next to the Roof of the Wolfings.
So those little throngs broke up at once; and all the freemen, and of the
thralls a good many, flocked, both men and women, to the Man's-door
of the hall, and streamed in quietly and with little talk, as men knowing
that they should hear all in due season.
Within under the Hall-Sun, amidst the woven stories of time past, sat
the elders and chief warriors on the dais, and amidst of all a big strong
man of forty winters, his dark beard a little grizzled, his eyes big and
grey. Before him on the board lay the great War-horn of the Wolfings
carved out of the tusk of a sea-whale of the North and with many
devices on it and the Wolf amidst them all; its golden mouth-piece and
rim wrought finely with flowers. There it abode the blowing, until the
spoken word of some messenger should set forth the tidings borne on
the air by the horn of the Elkings.
But the name of the dark-haired chief was Thiodolf (to wit Folk-wolf)
and he was deemed the wisest man of the Wolfings, and the best man
of his hands, and of heart most dauntless. Beside him sat the fair
woman called the Hall-Sun; for she was his foster-daughter before
men's eyes; and she was black-haired and grey-eyed like to her fosterer,
and never was woman fashioned fairer: she was young of years, scarce
twenty winters old.
There sat the chiefs and elders on the dais, and round about stood the
kindred intermingled with the thralls, and no man spake, for they were
awaiting sure and certain tidings: and when all were come in who had a
mind to, there was so great a silence in the hall, that the song of the
nightingales on the wood-edge sounded clear and loud therein, and
even the chink of the bats about the upper windows could be heard.
Then amidst the hush of men-folk, and the sounds of the life of the
earth came another sound that made all turn their eyes toward the door;
and this was the pad-pad of one running on the trodden and

summer-dried ground anigh the hall: it stopped for a moment at the
Man's-door, and the door opened, and the throng parted, making way
for the man that entered and came hastily up to the midst of the table
that stood on the dais athwart the hall, and stood there panting, holding
forth in his outstretched hand something which not all could see in the
dimness of the hall-twilight, but which all knew nevertheless. The man
was young, lithe and slender, and had no raiment but linen breeches
round his middle, and skin shoes on his feet. As he stood there
gathering his breath for speech, Thiodolf stood up, and poured mead
into a drinking horn and held it out towards the new-comer, and spake,
but in rhyme and measure:
"Welcome, thou evening-farer, and holy be thine head, Since thou hast
sought unto us in the heart of the Wolfings' stead; Drink now of the
horn of the mighty, and call a health if thou wilt O'er the eddies of the
mead-horn