I feared her not, for she was a lady of our own race, who was drowned there by the wild Welsh folk in some raid of theirs when we Angles first came from the land beyond the seas and drove them out.  Ours was the clan of the Wormings—­I bore the badge of the twining snake myself today, marked on my left arm, as had all my fathers before me—­so ford and mere were named after us, and we were proud of the long descent, as I have said.  Once had my mother seen the Lady, and that was on the day that my father was slain.  Therefore had she seen unmoved the coming of Grinkel, for she knew already what had befallen.  I had not seen the Lady, but I know that many others of my race had done so, and ever before the coming to them of somewhat great that was not always ill.  But she never spoke to them, but floated, white robed, over the mere, singing at times, or silent.

Now it came into my mind that the thrall was not so far wrong, and that there was a chance that Gunnhild might have some hiding place among those woods about the mere, for no man willingly searches them, and Danes fear these places more than we, being heathenish altogether.  So I asked Brand if the Danes knew about the White Lady.

“Ay, master, they soon learned that.  They call her ‘Uldra’, though why I know not.”

That was the name of the water spirit they believed in.  So I became all the more sure that Gunnhild was there.  It would be easy for her to feign to be the White Lady and so terrify any man who sought her.  A man is apt to shape aught he sees into what he fears he may see.

“Has the White Lady been seen of late?” I asked therefore.

“I have heard that the Danes say that they have seen her,” he answered.  “They have seen also bale fires burning on the mound where the great queen lies.”

That last was an old tale among us also, but I had never seen any light above the great mound.  Ottar had many sagas that told of the fires that burnt, unearthly, above buried heroes, and the Danes would watch for them, and so, as I have said, would certainly see them, or deem that they did so.  Yet I suppose that these strange fires may have burnt on the tombs of heathen men, else would not the tales have been told thereof so certainly.  But Christian warriors rest in peace, and about their last bed is no unquiet.  Nor may Christian folk be frighted by the bale fires of the long-ago heathen’s mounds.  For their sakes they have been quenched, as I think.

So I stood and mused for a while, turning over in my mind how best to find Gunnhild at the mere without leading others to her hiding place.  And at last I laughed to myself, the thing was so simple.  I had but to go into the mere woods at twilight or in the dusk, and wander about until she heard and feared my coming.  Then she would play the White Lady’s part on me to fray me away, and all was done.  She could not tell who I was, nor would she think it likely that I would seek her there, and would easily forgive me for doing so, when we met.