So Otter and his folk crossed the ford, and drew up in good order on the westward bank, and it was then somewhat more than three hours after noon.  He had been there but a little while before he noted a stir in the Bearing meadow, and lo, it was the first of Thiodolf’s folk, who had gotten out of the wood and had fallen in with the men whom he had left behind.  And these first were the riders of the Bearings, and the Wormings, (for they had out-gone the others who were afoot).  It may well be thought how fearful was their anger when they set eyes on the smouldering ashes of the dwellings; nor even when those folk of Otter had told them all they had to tell could some of them refrain them from riding off to the burnt houses to seek for the bodies of their kindred.  But when they came there, and amidst the ashes could find no bones, their hearts were lightened, and yet so mad wroth they were, that some could scarce sit their horses, and great tears gushed from the eyes of some, and pattered down like hail-stones, so eager were they to see the blood of the Romans.  So they rode back to where they had left their folk talking with them of Otter; and the Bearings were sitting grim upon their horses and somewhat scowling on Otter’s men.  Then the foremost of those who had come back from the houses waved his hand toward the ford, but could say nought for a while; but the captain and chief of the Bearings, a grizzled man very big of body, whose name was Arinbiorn, spake to that man and said; “What aileth thee Sweinbiorn the Black?  What hast thou seen?”

He said: 

   “Now red and grey is the pavement of the Bearings’ house of old: 
   Red yet is the floor of the dais, but the hearth all grey and cold. 
   I knew not the house of my fathers; I could not call to mind
   The fashion of the building of that Warder of the Wind. 
   O wide were grown the windows, and the roof exceeding high! 
   For nought there was to look on ’twixt the pavement and the sky. 
   But the tie-beam lay on the dais, and methought its staining fair;
   For rings of smoothest charcoal were round it here and there,
   And the red flame flickered o’er it, and never a staining wight
   Hath red earth in his coffer so clear and glittering bright,
   And still the little smoke-wreaths curled o’er it pale and blue. 
   Yea, fair is our hall’s adorning for a feast that is strange and new.”

Said Arinbiorn:  “What sawest thou therein, O Sweinbiorn, where sat thy grandsire at the feast?  Where were the bones of thy mother lying?”

Said Sweinbiorn: 

   “We sought the feast-hall over, and nought we found therein
   Of the bones of the ancient mothers, or the younglings of the kin. 
   The men are greedy, doubtless, to lose no whit of the prey,
   And will try if the hoary elders may yet outlive the way
   That leads to the southland cities, till at last they come to stand
   With the younglings in the market to be sold in an alien land.”