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CHAPTER XV. MURDER AMONGST THE FOLK OF THE WOODLANDERS.

[Songs extracted from the prose narrative.]

[The Song of the Weaving of the Banner.]

Why sit ye bare in the spinning-room?
Why weave ye naked at the loom?
Bare and white as the moon we be,
That the Earth and the drifting night may see.
Now what is the worst of all your work?
What curse amidst the web shall lurk?
The worst of the work our hands shall win
Is rack and ruin round the kin.
Shall the woollen yarn and the flaxen thread
Be gear for living men or dead?
The woollen yarn and the flaxen thread
Shall flare 'twixt living men and dead.
O what is the ending of your day?
When shall ye rise and wend away?
Our day shall end to-morrow morn,
When we hear the voice of the battle-horn.
Where first shall eyes of men behold
This weaving of the moonlight cold?
There where the alien host abides
The gathering on the Mountain-sides.
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How long aloft shall the fair web fly
When the bows are bent and the spears draw nigh?
From eve to morn and morn till eve
Aloft shall fly the work we weave.
What then is this, the web ye win?
What wood-beast waxeth stark therein?
We weave the Wolf and the gift of war
From the men that were to the men that are.
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