forked
pen- nons which were half purple, half scarlet, strewn with golden
stars; their heads and their hands were bare, but they bore shields,
each one of them, which were of bright steel wrought cunningly in the
midst with that bearing of the two hands of one who prays for
forgiveness; which was done in gold. These were but five hundred.

Then they all went by winding up and up the hill roads, and, when the
last of them had departed out of our sight, we put down our heads and
wept, and I said, "Sing us one of the songs of the Hollow Land." Then
he whom I had called Swerker put his hand into his bosom, and slowly
drew out a long, long tress of black hair, and laid it on his knee and
smoothed it, weeping on it: So then I left him there and went and
armed myself, and brought armour for him.

And then came back to him and threw the armour down so that it
clanged, and said:

"O Harald, let us go!"

He did not seem surprised that I called him by the right name, but
rose and armed himself, and then be looked a good knight; so we set
forth. And in a turn of the long road we came suddenly upon a most
fair woman, clothed in scarlet, who sat and sobbed, holding her face
between her bands, and her hair was very black.

And when Harald saw her, he stood and gazed at her for long through
the bars of bis helmet, then suddenly turned, and said:

"Florian, I must stop here; do you go on to the Hollow Land.
Farewell."

"Farewell." And then I went on, never turning back, and him I never
saw more.

And so I went on, quite lonely, but happy, till I had reached the
Hollow Land.

Into which I let myself down most carefully, by the jutting rocks and
bushes and strange trailing flowers, and there lay down and fell
asleep.

FYTTE THE THIRD

And I was waked by some one singing; I felt very happy; I felt young
again; I had fair delicate raiment on, my sword was gone, and my
armour; I tried to think where I was, and could not for my happiness;
I tried to listen to the words of the song. Nothing, only an old echo
in my ears, only all manner of strange scenes from my wretched past
life before my eyes in a dim, far-off manner: then at last, slowly,
without effort, I heard what she sang.

"Christ keep the Hollow Land
All the summer-tide;
Still we cannot understand
Where the waters glide;

Only dimly seeing them
Coldly slipping through
Many green-lipp'd cavern mouths.
Where the hills are blue."

"Then,"