our tribes and districts which they have taken from the
ancient oaks."

A shout of joy, somewhat subdued by reverence, greeted the procession
of twelve heralds, who now, in pairs, with measured tread, came from
beyond the ash-tree and gave the badges to the representatives of the
various districts and clans, who stepped forward from the circle to
receive them.

Ebarvin seized the symbol of the Ebergau: the boar's head with
threatening tusks fastened to a cross-pole on a lofty spear. Adalo
grasped a similar shaft, which supported a pair of huge stag's antlers.
Almost all the monsters of the primeval forest and the animals sacred
to the gods were used in a similar way. Beside the huge horns of the
aurochs and the bison rose the broad antlers of the elk. Odin's wolf,
Donar's bear, and Loeki's fox opened their jaws threateningly. Zio's
sword, pointing straight upward, surmounted a shaft painted blood-red;
another had Donar's hammer between two zigzag red lightnings forged
from iron; three lances bore each a horse's head and neck, and from the
necks the manes--respectively black, red, and brown--still fluttered.
On other poles the bald eagle, the golden eagle, and the Alpine vulture
spread their wings and extended their talons in attitudes of menace. A
winged dragon carved from wood had been covered with the skins of the
ring adder and the copper adder, which rustled in the wind. And as,
like the manes of the horses, the hair of the wild beasts had been left
hanging in a strip from the head to the tail, and long red, yellow, and
blue streamers fluttered from the cross-poles, there was no lack of the
rustling, waving motion, to which we moderns are accustomed in banners.

Under these streamers was also many a trophy,--a fragment cut from a
captured dragon standard, or a scrap of a purple pennon which the Roman
squadrons and cohorts had long carried under the _labarum_ or standard
of the cross, for they had abjured the pagan eagles.

When the representatives of the districts and families had received
their beloved and honored emblems and returned to the ranks, the Duke
went on:

"Hail to you, ancient symbols of conflict and witnesses of victory!
Hail and greeting, ye emblems consecrated to the gods! In your
presence, looking into the future, seized by the power of the gods
invisibly hovering around you, I will venture to utter a prophecy:

"Comrades in arms, Alemanni! do not doubt this time that victory will
be ours. Yo