ht Sorli, who sat in his chair, no longer quite
way-worthy, said:

"Hall-Sun, this we looked for of thee; since thy wisdom is not wholly the
wisdom of a spae-wife, but rather is of the children of warriors: and we
know thine heart to be high and proud, and that thy death seemeth to thee
a small matter beside the life of the Wolfing House."

Then she smiled and said, "Will ye all do my bidding?"

And they all cried out heartily, "Yea, Hall-Sun, that will we."

She said: "Hearken then; ye all know that east of Mirkwood-water, when ye
come to the tofts of the Bearings, and their Great Roof, the thicket
behind them is close, but that there is a wide way cut through it; and
often have I gone there: if ye go by that way, in a while ye come to the
thicket's end and to bare places where the rocks crop up through the
gravel and the woodland loam. There breed the coneys without number; and
wild-cats haunt the place for that sake, and foxes; and the wood-wolf
walketh there in summer-tide, and hard by the she-wolf hath her litter of
whelps, and all these have enough; and the bald-head erne hangeth over it
and the kite, and also the kestril, for shrews and mice abound there. Of
these things there is none that feareth me, and none that maketh me
afraid. Beyond this place for a long way the wood is nowise thick, for
first grow ash-trees about the clefts of the rock and also quicken-trees,
but not many of either; and here and there a hazel brake easy to thrust
through; then comes a space of oak-trees scattered about the lovely wood-
lawn, and then at last the beech-wood close above but clear beneath. This
I know well, because I myself have gone so far and further; and by this
easy way have I gone so far to the south, that I have come out into the
fell country, and seen afar off the snowy mountains beyond the Great
Water.

"Now fear ye not, but pluck up a heart! For either I have seen it or
dreamed it, or thought it, that by this road easy to wend the Romans
should come into the Mark. For shall not those dastards and traitors
that wear the raiment and bodies of the Goths over the hearts and the
lives of foemen, tell them hereof? And will they not have heard of our
Thiodolf, and this my holy namesake?

"Will they not therefore be saying to themselves, 'Go to now, why should
we wrench the hinges off the door with plenteous labour, when another
door to the same chamber standeth open before us? This House of the
Wolfings is th