ivid Styx.
Behold, counter to my will and purpose, I must declare some bitter
tidings. For as ye go away from this house ye will come to the narrow
path of a grove, and will be a prey to demons all about. Then she who
hath brought our death back from out of void, and has given us a sight
of this light once more, by her prayers wondrously drawing forth the
ghost and casting it into the bonds of the body, shall bitterly bewail
her rash enterprise.

"Perish accursed he who hath dragged me back from those below, let him
be punished for calling a spirit out of bale!

"For when the black pestilence of the blast that engenders monsters has
crushed out the inmost entrails with stern effort, and when their hand
has swept away the living with cruel nail, tearing off limbs and rending
ravished bodies; then Hadding, thy life shall survive, nor shall the
nether realms bear off thy ghost, nor thy spirit pass heavily to the
waters of Styx; but the woman who hath made the wretched ghost come back
hither, crushed by her own guilt, shall appease our dust; she shall be
dust herself.

"Perish accursed he who hath dragged me back from those below, let him
be punished for calling a spirit out of bale!"

So, while they were passing the night in the forest foretold them, in a
shelter framed of twigs, a hand of extraordinary size was seen to wander
over the inside of the dwelling. Terrified at this portent, Hadding
entreated the aid of his nurse. Then Hardgrep, expanding her limbs and
swelling to a mighty bigness, gripped the hand fast and held it to her
foster-child to hew off. What flowed from the noisesome wounds he dealt
was not so much blood as corrupt matter. But she paid the penalty of
this act, presently being torn in pieces by her kindred of the same
stock; nor did her constitution or her bodily size help her against
feeling the attacks of her foes' claws.

Hadding, thus bereft of his foster-mother, chanced to be made an ally in
a solemn covenant to a rover, Lysir, by a certain man of great age that
had lost an eye, who took pity on his loneliness. Now the ancients, when
about to make a league, were wont to besprinkle their footsteps with
blood of one another, so to ratify their pledge of friendship by
reciprocal barter of blood. Lysir and Hadding, being bound thus in
the strictest league, declared war against Loker, the tyrant of the
Kurlanders. They were defeated; and the old man aforementioned took
Hadding, as he fled on horse