e East where no men dwell.
We have abided in the mountain places,
Chanted our woes among the black rocks crouching.

(GUDFINN _joins her in a sing-song utterance._)
From the East, from the East we drove and the wind waved us,
Over the heaths, over the barren ashes.
We are old, our eyes are old, and the light hurts us,
We have skins on our eyes that part alone to the star-light.
We stumble about the night, the rocks tremble
Beneath our trembling feet; black sky thickens,
Breaks into clots, and lets the moon upon us.

(JOFRID _joins her voice to the voices of the other two._)
Far from the men who fear us, men who stone us,
Hiding, hiding, flying whene'er they slumber,
High on the crags we pause, over the moon-gulfs;
Black clouds fall and leave us up in the moon-depths
Where wind flaps our hair and cloaks like fin-webs,
Ay, and our sleeves that toss with our arms and the cadence
Of quavering crying among the threatening echoes.
Then we spread our cloaks and leap down the rock-stairs,
Sweeping the heaths with our skirts, greying the dew-bloom,
Until we feel a pool on the wide dew stretches
Stilled by the moon or ruffling like breast-feathers,
And, with grey sleeves cheating the sleepy herons,
Squat among them, pillow us there and sleep.
But in the harder wastes we stand upright,
Like splintered rain-worn boulders set to the wind
In old confederacy, and rest and sleep.

(HALLGERD'S _women are huddled together and clasping each other._)

ODDNY
What can these women be who sleep like horses,
Standing up in the darkness? What will they do?

GUNNAR
Ye wail like ravens and have no human thoughts.
What do ye seek? What will ye here with us?

BIARTEY (_as all three cower suddenly_)
Succour upon this terrible journeying.
We have a message for a man in the West,
Sent by an old man sitting in the East.
We are spent, our feet are moving wounds, our bodies
Dream of themselves and seem to trail behind us
Because we went unfed down in the mountains.
Feed us and shelter us beneath your roof,
And put us over the Markfleet, over the channels.
We are weak old women: we are beseeching you.

GUNNAR
You may bide here this night, but on the morrow
You shall go over, for tramping shameless women
Carry too many tales from stead to stead--
And sometimes heavier gear