growth, though low he bended o'er a
twisted staff of oak,
And his stalwart shape was folded in a dun,
unseemly cloak.

Straight the Earl his voice uplifted: "Hail
to thee, my guest austere!
Drain with me this cup of welcome: thou shalt
share our Yule-tide cheer.
Thou shalt sit next to my high-seat e'en
though lowly be thy birth,
For to-night our Lord, the Savior, came a
stranger to his earth."

Up then rose the gentle Swanwhite, and her
eyes with fear grew bright;
Down the dusky hall she drifted, as a shadow
drifts by night.
"If my lord would hold me worthy," low she
spake, "then grant me leave
To abide between the stranger and my lord,
this Christmas eve."

"Strange, O guest, is women's counsel, still
their folly is the staff
Upon which our wisdom leaneth," and he
laughed a burly laugh;
Lifted up her lissome body with a husband's
tender pride,
Kissed her brow, and placed her gently in the
high-seat at his side.

But the guest stood pale and quivered, where
the red flames roofward rose,
And he clenched the brimming goblet in his
fingers, fierce and close,

Then he spake: "All hail, Earl Sigurd,
mightiest of the Norsemen, hail!
Ere I name to thee my tidings, I will taste thy
flesh and ale."

Quoth the merry Earl with fervor: "Courteous
is thy speech and free:
While thy worn soul thou refreshest, I will
sing a song to thee;
For beneath that dusky garment thou mayst
hide a hero's heart,
And my hand, though stiff, hath scarcely yet
unlearned the singer's art."

Then the arms so tightly folded round his neck
the Earl unclasped,
And his heart was stirred within him as the
silvern strings he grasped,
But with eyes of meek entreaty, closely to his
side she clung,
While his mighty soul rose upward on the
billows of the song.

For he sang, in tones impassioned, of the death
of Aesir bright,
Sang the song of Christ the glorious, who was
born a babe to-night,

How the hosts of heaven victorious joined the
anthem of his birth,
Of the kings the starlight guided from the far
lands of the earth.

And anon, with bodeful glamour fraught, the
hurrying strain sped on,
As he sang the law of vengeance and the wrath
forever gone,
Sang of gods with murder sated, who had laid
the fair earth waste,
Who had whetted swords of Norsemen,
plunged them into Norsemen's breast.

But he shook a shower of music, rippling from
the silver strings,