But Thiodolf said:  “O Wood-Sun, this thou hast a right to ask of me, why I have not worn in the battle thy gift, the Treasure of the World, the Dwarf-wrought Hauberk!  And what is this that thou sayest?  I doubt not thy faith towards me and thine abundant love:  and as for the rede of the Gods, I know it not, nor may I know it, nor turn it this way nor that:  and as for thy love and that I would choose death sooner, I know not what thou meanest; I will not say that I love thy love better than life itself; for these two, my life and my love, are blended together and may not be sundered.

“Hearken therefore as to the Hauberk:  I wot well that it is for no light matter that thou wouldst have me bear thy gift, the wondrous hauberk, into battle; I deem that some doom is wrapped up in it; maybe that I shall fall before the foe if I wear it not; and that if I wear it, somewhat may betide me which is unmeet to betide a warrior of the Wolfings.  Therefore will I tell thee why I have fought in two battles with the Romans with unmailed body, and why I left the hauberk, (which I see that thou bearest in thine arms) in the Roof of the Daylings.  For when I entered therein, clad in the hauberk, there came to meet me an ancient man, one of the very valiant of days past, and he looked on me with the eyes of love, as though he had been the very father of our folk, and I the man that was to come after him to carry on the life thereof.  But when he saw the hauberk and touched it, then was his love smitten cold with sadness and he spoke words of evil omen; so that putting this together with thy words about the gift, and that thou didst in a manner compel me to wear it, I could not but deem that this mail is for the ransom of a man and the ruin of a folk.

“Wilt thou say that it is not so? then will I wear the hauberk, and live and die happy.  But if thou sayest that I have deemed aright, and that a curse goeth with the hauberk, then either for the sake of the folk I will not wear the gift and the curse, and I shall die in great glory, and because of me the House shall live; or else for thy sake I shall bear it and live, and the House shall live or die as may be, but I not helping, nay I no longer of the House nor in it.  How sayest thou?”

Then she said: 

“Hail be thy mouth, beloved, for that last word of thine, And the hope that thine heart conceiveth and the hope that is born in mine.  Yea, for a man’s delivrance was the hauberk born indeed That once more the mighty warrior might help the folk at need.  And where is the curse’s dwelling if thy life be saved to dwell Amidst the Wolfing warriors and the folk that loves thee well And the house where the high Gods left thee to be cherished well therein?

   “Yea more:  I have told thee, beloved, that thou art not of the kin;
   The blood in thy body is blended of the wandering Elking race,
   And one that I may not tell of, who in God-home hath his place,