“Thereafter I went with the host to the assembly of the stay-at-homes and fleers, and sat before the Hall-Sun our daughter, and said the words which were put into my mouth.  But now must I tell thee a hard and evil thing; that I loved them not, and was not of them, and outside myself there was nothing:  within me was the world and nought without me.  Nay, as for thee, I was not sundered from thee, but thou wert a part of me; whereas for the others, yea, even for our daughter, thine and mine, they were but images and shows of men, and I longed to depart from them, and to see thy body and to feel thine heart beating.  And by then so evil was I grown that my very shame had fallen from me, and my will to die:  nay, I longed to live, thou and I, and death seemed hateful to me, and the deeds before death vain and foolish.

“Where then was my glory and my happy life, and the hope of the days fresh born every day, though never dying?  Where then was life, and Thiodolf that once had lived?

“But now all is changed once more; I loved thee never so well as now, and great is my grief that we must sunder, and the pain of farewell wrings my heart.  Yet since I am once more Thiodolf the Mighty, in my heart there is room for joy also.  Look at me, O Wood-Sun, look at me, O beloved! tell me, am I not fair with the fairness of the warrior and the helper of the folk?  Is not my voice kind, do not my lips smile, and mine eyes shine?  See how steady is mine hand, the friend of the folk!  For mine eyes are cleared again, and I can see the kindreds as they are, and their desire of life and scorn of death, and this is what they have made me myself.  Now therefore shall they and I together earn the merry days to come, the winter hunting and the spring sowing, the summer haysel, the ingathering of harvest, the happy rest of midwinter, and Yuletide with the memory of the Fathers, wedded to the hope of the days to be.  Well may they bid me help them who have holpen me!  Well may they bid me die who have made me live!

“For whereas thou sayest that I am not of their blood, nor of their adoption, once more I heed it not.  For I have lived with them, and eaten and drunken with them, and toiled with them, and led them in battle and the place of wounds and slaughter; they are mine and I am theirs; and through them am I of the whole earth, and all the kindreds of it; yea, even of the foemen, whom this day the edges in mine hand shall smite.

“Therefore I will bear the Hauberk no more in battle; and belike my body but once more:  so shall I have lived and death shall not have undone me.

“Lo thou, is not this the Thiodolf whom thou hast loved? no changeling of the Gods, but the man in whom men have trusted, the friend of Earth, the giver of life, the vanquisher of death?”

And he cast himself upon her, and strained her to his bosom and kissed her, and caressed her, and awoke the bitter-sweet joy within her, as he cried out: