But as those three fellows, of whose talk of yesterday the tale has told, drew near and beheld what the old carle did (for they were riding together this day also) the Beaming man laid his hand on Wolfkettle’s rein and said: 

“Lo you, neighbour, if thy Vala hath seen nought, yet hath this old man seen somewhat, and that somewhat even as the little lad saw it.  Many a mother’s son shall fall before the Welshmen.”

But Wolfkettle shook his rein free, and his face reddened as of one who is angry, yet he kept silence, while the Elking said: 

“Let be, Toti! for he that lives shall tell the tale to the foreseers, and shall make them wiser than they are to-day.”

Then laughed Toti, as one who would not be thought to be too heedful of the morrow.  But Wolfkettle brake out into speech and rhyme, and said: 

   “O warriors, the Wolfing kindred shall live or it shall die;
   And alive it shall be as the oak-tree when the summer storm goes by;
   But dead it shall be as its bole, that they hew for the corner-post
   Of some fair and mighty folk-hall, and the roof of a war-fain host.”

So therewith they rode their ways past the abode of the Daylings.

Straight to the wood went all the host, and so into it by a wide way cleft through the thicket, and in some thirty minutes they came thereby into a great wood-lawn cleared amidst of it by the work of men’s hands.  There already was much of the host gathered, sitting or standing in a great ring round about a space bare of men, where amidmost rose a great mound raised by men’s hands and wrought into steps to be the sitting-places of the chosen elders and chief men of the kindred; and atop the mound was flat and smooth save for a turf bench or seat that went athwart it whereon ten men might sit.

All the wains save the banner-wains had been left behind at the Dayling abode, nor was any beast there save the holy beasts who drew the banner-wains and twenty white horses, that stood wreathed about with flowers within the ring of warriors, and these were for the burnt offering to be given to the Gods for a happy day of battle.  Even the war-horses of the host they must leave in the wood without the wood-lawn, and all men were afoot who were there.

For this was the Thing-stead of the Upper-mark, and the holiest place of the Markmen, and no beast, either neat, sheep, or horse might pasture there, but was straightway slain and burned if he wandered there; nor might any man eat therein save at the holy feasts when offerings were made to the Gods.

So the Wolfings took their place there in the ring of men with the Elkings on their right hand and the Beamings on their left.  And in the midst of the Wolfing array stood Thiodolf clad in the dwarf-wrought hauberk:  but his head was bare; for he had sworn over the Cup of Renown that he would fight unhelmed throughout all that trouble, and would bear no shield in any battle thereof however fierce the onset might be.