never blooms, for the
smoke-blackened wooden huts on the misty heaths?"

"Aye, that I would, by Thorns hammer! This land is good to lay waste,
to luxuriate and win battles in; but that done, then up and away with
the booty! But you, Goths, are thrown here like drops of water upon hot
iron. And if ever we sons of Odin shall rule this land, it will be only
such of us as have a strong support in other sons of Odin. But you--you
have already become very different to us. Your grandfathers, your
fathers, and yourselves have wooed Roman women; in a few generations,
if this continue, you will be Romanised. Already you have become
smaller, and darker in skin, eyes, and hair. At least many of you. I
long to be away from this soft and sultry air, and to breathe the north
wind that rushes over our woods and waves. Yes, and I long for the
smoke-blackened halls of wood, where Gothic runes are burnt into the
roof-beams, and the harps of the Skalds hang on the wooden pillars, and
the sacred hearth-fire glows hospitably for ever! I long for our
Northland, for it is our home!"

"Then permit us to love _our_ home: this land Italia!"

"It will never be your home; but perhaps your grave. You are strangers
and will remain so. Or you will become Romanised. But there is no
abiding in the land possible for you as sons of Odin."

"Let us at least try, my brother Harald," cried Totila, laughing. "Yes,
we have changed in the two centuries during which our people have lived
among the laurels. But are we the worse for it? Is it necessary to wear
a bearskin in order to be a hero? Is it necessary to rob gold and
marble statues in order to enjoy them? Can one be only either a
barbarian or a Roman? Can we not keep the virtues of the Germans and
lay aside their faults? Adopt the virtues of the Romans without their
vices?"

But Harald shook his massive head.

"I should rejoice at your success, but I do not believe in it. The
plant takes the nature of the soil and climate upon and under which it
lives. And, for my part, I should not at all like it, even if I and
mine could succeed. Our faults are dearer to me than the virtues of the
Italians--if they have any."

Totila remembered the words with which he himself had answered Julius.

"From the north comes all strength--the world belongs to the Northmen,"
concluded Harald.

"Tell it to them in the words of thy favourite song," said his sister.

And she handed him her harp; and Harald played and s