“Woe’s me, Arinbiorn! that thou wouldest not wait for me; for the day is young yet, and over-young!”

  There then they cleared the space outside the gate, and lifted up the Bearing Warrior, and bare him back from the rampart.  For so fierce had been the fight and so eager the storm of those that had followed after him that they must needs order their battle afresh, since Thiodolf’s wedge which he had driven into the Roman host was but of a few and the foe had been many and the rampart and the shot-weapons were close anigh.  Wise therefore it seemed to abide them of the second battle and join with them to swarm over the new-built slippery wall in the teeth of the Roman shot.

  In this, the first onset of the Morning Battle, some of the Markmen had fallen, but not many, since but a few had entered outright into the Roman ranks; and when they first rushed on from the wood but three of them were slain, and the slaughter was all of the dastards and the Romans; and afterwards not a few of the Romans were slain, what by Arinbiorn, what by the others; for they were fighting fleeing, and before their eyes was the image of the garth-gate which was behind them; and they stumbled against each other as they were driven sideways against the onrush of the Goths, nor were they now standing fair and square to them, and they were hurried and confused with the dread of the onset of them of the two Marks.

  As yet Thiodolf had gotten no great hurt, so that when he heard that Arinbiorn’s soul had passed away he smiled and said:

  “Yea, yea, Arinbiorn might have abided the end, for ere then shall the battle be hard.”

  So now the Wolfings and the Bearings met joyously the kindreds of the Nether Mark and the others of the second battle, and they sang the song of victory arrayed in good order hard by the Roman rampart, while bowstrings twanged and arrows whistled, and sling-stones hummed from this side and from that.

  And of their song of victory thus much the tale telleth:

     “Now hearken and hear

   Of the day-dawn of fear,

   And how up rose the sun

   On the battle begun.

   All night lay a-hiding,

   Our anger abiding,

   Dark down in the wood

   The sharp seekers of blood;

But ere red grew the heaven we bore them all bare,

For against us undriven the foemen must fare;

They sought and they found us, and sorrowed to find,

For the tree-boles around us the story shall mind,

How fast from the glooming they fled to the light,

Yeasaying the dooming of Tyr of the fight.

     “Hearken yet and again

   How the night gan to wane,

   And the twilight stole on

   Till the world was well won!

   E’en in such wise was wending

   A great host for our ending;

   On our life-days e’en so

   Stole the host of the foe;

Till the heavens grew lighter, and light grew the world,

And the storm of the fighter upon them was hurled,

Then some fled the stroke, and some died and some stood,

Till the worst of the storm broke right out from the wood,

And the war-shafts were singing the carol of fear,

The tale of the bringing the sharp swords anear.

     “Come gather we now,

   For the day doth grow.

   Come, gather, ye bold,

   Lest the day wax old;

   Lest not till to-morrow

   We slake our sorrow,

   And heap the ground

   With many a mound.

Come, war-children, gather, and clear we the land!

In the tide of War-father the deed is to hand.

Clad in gear that we gilded they shrink from our sword;

In the House that we builded they sit at the board;

Come, war-children, gather, come swarm o’er the wall

For the feast of War-father to sweep out the Hall!”

  Now amidst of their singing the sun rose upon the earth, and gleamed in the arms of men, and lit the faces of the singing warriors as they stood turned toward the east.

  In this first onset of battle but twenty and three Markmen were slain in all, besides Arinbiorn; for, as aforesaid, they had the foe at a disadvantage.  And this onset is called in the tale the Storm of Dawning.

  CHAPTER XXI—OF THIODOLF’S STORM

  The Goths tarried not over their victory; they shot with all the bowmen that they had against the Romans on the wall, and therewith arrayed themselves to fall on once more.  And Thiodolf, now that the foe were covered by a wall, though it was but a little one, sent a message to the men of the third battle, them of Up-mark to wit, to come forward in good array and help to make a ring around the Wolfing Stead, wherein they should now take the Romans as a beast is taken in a trap.  Meanwhile, until they came, he sent other men to the wood to bring tree-boles to batter the gate, and to make bridges whereby to swarm over the wall, which was but breast-high on the Roman side, though they had worked at it ceaselessly since yesterday morning.

  In a long half-hour, therefore, the horns of the men of Up-mark sounded, and they came forth from the wood a very great company, for with them also were the men of the stay-at-homes and the homeless, such of them as were fit to bear arms.  Amongst these went the Hall-Sun surrounded by a band of the warriors of Up-mark; and before her was borne her namesake the Lamp as a sign of assured victory.  But these stay-at-homes with the Hall-Sun were stayed by the command of Thiodolf on the crown of the slope above the dwellings, and stood round about the Speech-Hill, on the topmost of which stood the Hall-Sun, and the wondrous Lamp, and the men who warded her and it.

  When the Romans saw the new host come forth from the wood, they might well think that they would have work enough to do that day; but when they saw the Hall-Sun take her stand on the Speech-Hill with the men-at-arms about her, and the Lamp before her, then dread of the Gods fell upon them, and they knew that the doom had gone forth against them.  Nevertheless they were not men to faint and die because the Gods were become their foes, but they were resolved rather to fight it out to the end against whatsoever might come against them, as was well seen afterwards.

  Now they had made four gates to their garth according to their custom, and at each gate within was there a company of their mightiest men, and each was beset by the best of the Markmen.  Thiodolf and his men beset the western gate where they had made that fierce onset.  And the northern gate was beset by the Elkings and some of the kindreds of the Nether-mark; and the eastern gate by the rest of the men of Nether-mark; and the southern gate by the kindreds of Up-mark.