Therewith Geirmund went down clattering from the Hill and stood with his company.  But a man came forth from the other side of the ring, and clomb the Hill:  he was a red-haired man, rather big, clad in a skin coat, and bearing a bow in his hand and a quiver of arrows at his back, and a little axe hung by his side.  He said: 

“I dwell in the House of the Hrossings of the Mid-mark, and I am now made a man of the kindred:  howbeit I was not born into it; for I am the son of a fair and mighty woman of a folk of the Kymry, who was taken in war while she went big with me; I am called Fox the Red.

“These Romans have I seen, and have not died:  so hearken! for my tale shall be short for what there is in it.

“I am, as many know, a hunter of Mirkwood, and I know all its ways and the passes through the thicket somewhat better than most.

“A moon ago I fared afoot from Mid-mark through Upper-mark into the thicket of the south, and through it into the heath country; and I went over a neck and came in the early dawn into a little dale when somewhat of mist still hung over it.  At the dale’s end I saw a man lying asleep on the grass under a quicken tree, and his shield and sword hanging over his head to a bough thereof, and his horse feeding hoppled higher up the dale.

“I crept up softly to him with a shaft nocked on the string, but when I drew near I saw him to be of the sons of the Goths.  So I doubted nothing, but laid down my bow, and stood upright, and went to him and roused him, and he leapt up, and was wroth.

“I said to him, ’Wilt thou be wroth with a brother of the kindred meeting him in unpeopled parts?’

“But he reached out for his weapons; but ere he could handle them I ran in on him so that he gat not his sword, and had scant time to smite at me with a knife which he drew from his waist.

“I gave way before him for he was a very big man, and he rushed past me, and I dealt him a blow on the side of the head with my little axe which is called the War-babe, and gave him a great wound:  and he fell on the grass, and as it happened that was his bane.

“I was sorry that I had slain him, since he was a man of the Goths:  albeit otherwise he had slain me, for he was very wroth and dazed with slumber.

“He died not for a while; and he bade me fetch him water; and there was a well hard by on the other side of the tree; so I fetched it him in a great shell that I carry, and he drank.  I would have sung the blood-staunching song over him, for I know it well.  But he said, ’It availeth nought:  I have enough:  what man art thou?’

“I said, ’I am a fosterling of the Hrossings, and my mother was taken in war:  my name is Fox.’

“Said he; ’O Fox, I have my due at thy hands, for I am a Markman of the Elkings, but a guest of the Burgundians beyond the Great River; and the Romans are their masters and they do their bidding:  even so did I who was but their guest:  and I a Markman to fight against the Markmen, and all for fear and for gold!  And thou an alien-born hast slain their traitor and their dastard!  This is my due.  Give me to drink again.’