And who changed his shape to beget thee in the wild-wood’s leafy roof. 
   How then shall the doom of the Wolfings be woven in the woof
   Which the Norns for thee have shuttled? or shall one man of war
   Cast down the tree of the Wolfings on the roots that spread so far? 
   O friend, thou art wise and mighty, but other men have lived
   Beneath the Wolfing roof-tree whereby the folk has thrived.”

He reddened at her word; but his eyes looked eagerly on her.  She cast down the hauberk, and drew one step nigher to him.  She knitted her brows, her face waxed terrible, and her stature seemed to grow greater, as she lifted up her gleaming right arm, and cried out in a great voice.

   “Thou Thiodolf the Mighty!  Hadst thou will to cast the net
   And tangle the House in thy trouble, it is I would slay thee yet;
   For ’tis I and I that love them, and my sorrow would I give,
   And thy life, thou God of battle, that the Wolfing House might live.”

Therewith she rushed forward, and cast herself upon him, and threw her arms about him, and strained him to her bosom, and kissed his face, and he her in likewise, for there was none to behold them, and nought but the naked heaven was the roof above their heads.

And now it was as if the touch of her face and her body, and the murmuring of her voice changed and soft close to his ear, as she murmured mere words of love to him, drew him away from the life of deeds and doubts and made a new world for him, wherein he beheld all those fair pictures of the happy days that had been in his musings when first he left the field of the dead.

So they sat down on the grey stone together hand in hand, her head laid upon his shoulder, no otherwise than if they had been two lovers, young and without renown in days of deep peace.

So as they sat, her foot smote on the cold hilts of the sword, which Thiodolf had laid down in the grass; and she stooped and took it up, and laid it across her knees and his as they sat there; and she looked on Throng-plough as he lay still in the sheath, and smiled on him, and saw that the peace-strings were not yet wound about his hilts.  So she drew him forth and raised him up in her hand, and he gleamed white and fearful in the growing dawn, for all things had now gotten their colours again, whereas amidst their talking had the night worn, and the moon low down was grown white and pale.

But she leaned aside, and laid her cheek against Thiodolf’s, and he took the sword out of her hand and set it on his knees again, and laid his right hand on it, and said: