Then there arose a murmur, “Tell all, tell all.”  “Nay,” said the Fox, “All I may not tell; so much did I behold there during the three days’ stay; but this much it behoveth you to know:  that these men have no other thought save to win the Mark and waste it, and slay the fighting men and the old carles, and enthrall such as they will, that is, all that be fair and young, and they long sorely for our women either to have or to sell.

“As for their garth, it is strongly walled about with a dyke newly dug; on the top thereof are they building a wall made of clay, and burned like pots into ashlar stones hard and red, and these are laid in lime.

“It is now the toil of the thralls of our blood whom they have taken, both men and women, to dig that clay and to work it, and bear it to kilns, and to have for reward scant meat and many stripes.  For it is a grim folk, that laugheth to see others weep.

“Their men-at-arms are well dight and for the most part in one way:  they are helmed with iron, and have iron on their breasts and reins, and bear long shields that cover them to the knees.  They are girt with a sax and have a heavy casting-spear.  They are dark-skinned and ugly of aspect, surly and of few words:  they drink little, and eat not much.

“They have captains of tens and of hundreds over them, and that war-duke over all; he goeth to and fro with gold on his head and his breast, and commonly hath a cloak cast over him of the colour of the crane’s-bill blossom.

“They have an altar in the midst of their burg, and thereon they sacrifice to their God, who is none other than their banner of war, which is an image of the ravening eagle with outspread wings; but yet another God they have, and look you! it is a wolf, as if they were of the kin of our brethren; a she-wolf and two man-children at her dugs; wonderful is this.

“I tell you that they are grim; and know it by this token:  those captains of tens, and of hundreds, spare not to smite the warriors with staves even before all men, when all goeth not as they would; and yet, though they be free men, and mighty warriors, they endure it and smite not in turn.  They are a most evil folk.

“As to their numbers, they of the burg are hard on three thousand footmen of the best; and of horsemen five hundred, nowise good; and of bowmen and slingers six hundred or more:  their bows weak; their slingers cunning beyond measure.  And the talk is that when they come upon us they shall have with them some five hundred warriors of the Over River Goths, and others of their own folk.”

Then he said: 

   “O men of the Mark, will ye meet them in the meadows and the field,
   Or will ye flee before them and have the wood for a shield? 
   Or will ye wend to their war-burg with weapons cast away,
   With your women and your children, a peace of them to pray? 
   So doing, not all shall perish; but most shall long to die
   Ere in the garths of the Southland two moons have loitered by.”