Read House of the Wolfings: The William Morris Book that Inspired J. R. R. Tolkiena *s The Lord of the Rings for Free Online

any
creature, save that from the distant meadow came the lowing of a
cow that had lost her calf, and that a white owl was flitting about
near the eaves of the Roof with her wild cry that sounded like the
mocking of merriment now silent.
    Thiodolf turned toward the wood, and walked
steadily through the scattered hazel-trees, and thereby into the
thick of the beech-trees, whose boles grew smooth and silver-grey,
high and close-set: and so on and on he went as one going by a
well-known path, though there was no path, till all the moonlight
was quenched under the close roof of the beech-leaves, though yet
for all the darkness, no man could go there and not feel that the
roof was green above him. Still he went on in despite of the
darkness, till at last there was a glimmer before him, that grew
greater till he came unto a small wood-lawn whereon the turf grew
again, though the grass was but thin, because little sunlight got
to it, so close and thick were the tall trees round about it. In
the heavens above it by now there was a light that was not all of
the moon, though it might scarce be told whether that light were
the memory of yesterday or the promise of to-morrow, since little
of the heavens could be seen thence, save the crown of them,
because of the tall tree-tops.
    Nought looked Thiodolf either at the heavens
above, or the trees, as he strode from off the husk-strewn floor of
the beech wood on to the scanty grass of the lawn, but his eyes
looked straight before him at that which was amidmost of the lawn:
and little wonder was that; for there on a stone chair sat a woman
exceeding fair, clad in glittering raiment, her hair lying as pale
in the moonlight on the grey stone as the barley acres in the
August night before the reaping-hook goes in amongst them. She sat
there as though she were awaiting someone, and he made no stop nor
stay, but went straight up to her, and took her in his arms, and
kissed her mouth and her eyes, and she him again; and then he sat
himself down beside her. But her eyes looked kindly on him as she
said:
    “O Thiodolf, hardy art thou, that thou hast
no fear to take me in thine arms and to kiss me, as though thou
hadst met in the meadow with a maiden of the Elkings: and I, who am
a daughter of the Gods of thy kindred, and a Chooser of the Slain!
Yea, and that upon the eve of battle and the dawn of thy departure
to the stricken field!”
    “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