im from the roof.
Leave him up there and he can bay both armies,
While the whole dance goes merrily before us
And we can warm our hearts at such a flare.

RANNVEIG (_turning both ways, while HALLGERD watches her gleefully_)
Gunnar, my son, my son! What shall I do?

(ORMILD _enters from the left, white and with her hand to her
side, and walking as one sick._)

HALLGERD
Bah--here's a bleached assault....

RANNVEIG
Oh, lonesome thing,
To be forgot and left in such a night.
What is there now--are terrors surging still?

ORMILD
I know not what has gone: when the men came
I hid in the far cowhouse. I think I swooned....
And then I followed the shadow. Who is dead?

RANNVEIG
Go to the bower: the women will care for you.

(ORMILD _totters up the hall from pillar to pillar._)

ASTRID (_entering by the dais door_)
Now they have found the weather-ropes and lashed them
Over the carven ends of the beams outside:
They bear on them, they tighten them with levers,
And soon they'll tear the high roof off the hall.

GUNNAR
Get back and bolt the women into the bower.

(ASTRID _takes_ ORMILD, _who has just reached her, and goes out with
her by the dais door, which closes after them._)

Hallgerd, go in: I shall be here thereafter.

HALLGERD
I will not stir. Your mother had best go in.

RANNVEIG
How shall I stir?

VOICES (_outside and gathering volume_)
Ai.... Ai.... Reach harder.... Ai....

GUNNAR
Stand clear, stand clear--it moves.

THE VOICES
It moves.... Ai, ai....

(_The whole roof slides down rumblingly, disappearing with a crash
behind the watt of the house. All is dark above. Fine snow sifts
down now and then to the end of the play._)

GUNNAR (_handling his bow_)
The wind has changed: 'tis coming on to snow.
The harvesters will hurry in to-morrow.

(THORBRAND THORLEIKSSON _appears above the wall-top a little past_
GUNNAR, _and, reaching noiselessly with a sword, cuts_ GUNNAR'S
_bowstring._)

GUNNAR (_dropping the bow and seizing his bill_)
Ay, Thorbrand, is it thou? That's a rare blade,
To shear through hemp and gut.... Let your wife have it