back from him a little and
stood silently for a while as one in deep thought; and then turned and
went a few paces from him, and stooped down and came back again with
something in her arms (and it was the hauberk once more), and said
suddenly:

"O Thiodolf, now tell me for what cause thou wouldst not bear
This grey wall of the hammer in the tempest of the spear?
Didst thou doubt my faith, O Folk-wolf, or the counsel of the Gods,
That thou needs must cast thee naked midst the flashing battle-rods,
Or is thy pride so mighty that it seemed to thee indeed
That death was a better guerdon than the love of the Godhead's seed?"

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