ngs of everyone the talk of each one
else.

"Where do men say she lives?" I asked therefore.

The man looked doubtfully at me, but he could see that I was not
angry. So he smiled foolishly, and answered:

"We say nought, lord. Danes hear everything in some way."

"Well, you can tell me safely enough."

"We think it is witchcraft of the old dame's, and that she and the
lady Hertha live with the White Lady in the mere of Wormingford."

Then I was fain to laugh, for it was witchcraft more than even
Gunnhild could compass, by which she might find refuge in the
depths of that bottomless mere where the White Lady dwells. The
place has an ill name enough among our folk, and even on a bright
summer day, when all the margin of the wide circle of water is
starred with the white lilies, I have known silence fall on those
laughing ones who plucked the flowers, so still and dark are the
waters, and so silent the thick woods that hem the mere round under
the shadow of the westward hill that hides the sunset. No man cares
to go near the mere when darkness has fallen, so much do our people
fear to see the White Lady of whom Brand spoke.

I feared her not, for she was a lady of our own race, who was
drowned there by the wild Welsh folk in some raid of theirs when we
Angles first came from the land beyond the seas and drove them out.
Ours was the clan of the Wormings--I bore the badge of the twining
snake myself today, marked on my left arm, as had all my fathers
before me--so ford and mere were named after us, and we were proud
of the long descent, as I have said. Once had my mother seen the
Lady, and that was on the day that my father was slain. Therefore
had she seen unmoved the coming of Grinkel, for she knew already
what had befallen. I had not seen the Lady, but I know that many
others of my race had done so, and ever before the coming to them
of somewhat great that was not always ill. But she never spoke to
them, but floated, white robed, over the mere, singing at times, or
silent.

Now it came into my mind that the thrall was not so far wrong, and
that there was a chance that Gunnhild might have some hiding place
among those woods about the mere, for no man willingly searches
them, and Danes fear these places more than we, being heathenish
altogether. So I asked Brand if the Danes knew about the White
Lady.

"Ay, master, they soon learned that. They call her 'Uldra', though
why I know not."

That was the name of th