King Lear's Wife; The Crier by Night; The Riding to Lithend; Midsummer-Eve Part 19

Good Oddny, let me spin for you awhile, That Gunnar's house may profit by his guesting: Come, trust me with your distaff....

ODDNY. Are there spells Wrought on a distaff?

STEINVOR. Only by the Norns, And they'll not sit with human folk to-night.

ODDNY.

Then you may spin all night for what I care; But let the yarn run clean from knots and snarls, Or I shall have the blame when you are gone.

BIARTEY, _taking the distaff._ Trust well the aged knowledge of my hands; Thin and thin do I spin, and the thread draws finer.

_She sings as she spins._

They go by three, And the moon s.h.i.+vers; The tired waves flee, The hidden rivers Also flee.

I take three strands; There is one for her, One for my hands, And one to stir For another's hands.

I twine them thinner, The dead wool doubts; The outer is inner, The core slips out....

_HALLGERD re-enters by the das door, holding a pair of shears._

HALLGERD.

What are these women, Oddny? Who let them in?

BIARTEY, _who spins through all that follows._ Lady, the man of fame who is your man Gave us his peace to-night, and that of his house.

We are blown beggars tramping about the land, Denied a home for our evil and vagrant hearts; We sought this shelter when the first dew soaked us, And should have perished by the giant hound But Gunnar fought it with his eyes and saved us.

That is a strange hound, with a man's mind in it.

HALLGERD, _seating herself in the high-seat._ It is an Irish hound, from that strange soil Where men by day walk with unearthly eyes And cross the veils of the air, and are not men But fierce abstractions eating their own hearts Impatiently and seeing too much to be joyful....

If Gunnar welcomed ye, ye may remain.

BIARTEY.

She is a fair free lady, is she not?

But that was to be looked for in a high one Who counts among her fathers the bright Sigurd, The bane of Fafnir the Worm, the end of the G.o.d-kings; Among her mothers Brynhild, the la.s.s of Odin, The maddener of swords, the night-clouds' rider.

She has kept sweet that father's lore of bird-speech, She wears that mother's power to cheat a G.o.d.

Sisters, she does well to be proud....

JOFRID AND GUDFINN. Ay, Well....

HALLGERD, _shaping the tissue with her shears._ I need no witch to tell I am of rare seed, Nor measure my pride nor praise it. Do I not know?

Old women, ye are welcomed: sit with us, And while we st.i.tch tell us what gossip runs-- But if strife might be warmed by spreading it.

BIARTEY.

Lady, we are hungered; we were lost All night among the mountains of the East; Clouds of the cliffs come down my eyes again....

I pray you let some thrall bring us to food.

HALLGERD.

Ye get nought here. The supper is long over; The women shall not let ye know the food-house, Or ye'll be thieving in the night. Ye are idle, Ye suck a man's house bare and seek another.

'Tis bed-time; get to sleep--that stills much hunger.

BIARTEY.

Now it is easy to be seeing what spoils you.

You were not grasping or ought but over warm When Sigmund, Gunnar's kinsman, guested here.

You followed him, you were too kind with him, You lavished Gunnar's treasure and gear on him To draw him on, and did not call that thieving.

Ay, Sigmund took your feuds on him and died As Gunnar shall. Men have much harm by you.

HALLGERD.

Now have I gashed the golden cloth awry: 'Tis ended--a ruin of clouts--the worth of the gift-- Bridal dish-clouts--nay, a bundle of flame.

I'll burn it to a breath of its old queen's ashes: Fire, O fire, drink up....

_She throws the shreds of the veil on the glowing embers: they waft to ashes with a brief high flare. She goes to JOFRID._

There's one of you That holds her head in a bird's sideways fas.h.i.+on: I know that reach o' the chin.... What's under thy hair?--

_She fixes JOFRID with her knee, and lifts her hair._

Pfui, 'tis not hair, but sopped and rotting moss-- A thief, a thief indeed.... And twice a thief....

She has no ears. Keep thy hooked fingers still While thou art here, for if I miss a mouthful Thou shalt miss all thy nose. Get up, get up; I'll lodge ye with the mares....

JOFRID, _starting up._ Three men, three men, Three men have wived you, and for all you gave them Paid with three blows upon a cheek once kissed-- To every man a blow--and the last blow All the land knows was won by thieving food....

Yea, Gunnar is ended by the theft and the thief.

Is it not told that when you first grew tall, A false rare girl, Hrut your own kinsman said "I know not whence thief's eyes entered our blood."

You have more ears, yet are you not my sister?

Our evil vagrant heart is deeper in you.

HALLGERD, _s.n.a.t.c.hing the distaff from Biartey._ Out and be gone, be gone. Lie with the mountains, Smother among the thunder; stale dew mould you.

Outstrip the hound, or he shall so embrace you....

BIARTEY.

Now is all done ... all done ... and all your deed!

She broke the thread, and it shall not join again.

Spindle, spindle, the coiling weft shall dwindle; Leap on the fire and burn, for all is done....

_She casts the spindle upon the fire, and stretches her hands toward it._

HALLGERD, _attacking them with the distaff._ Into the night.... Dissolve....

BIARTEY, _as the three rush toward the door._ Sisters, away: Leave the woman to her smouldering beauty, Leave the fire that's kinder than the woman, Leave the roof-tree ere it falls. It falls.

_GUDFINN joins her. Each time Hallgerd flags they turn as they chant, and point at her._

We shall cry no more in the high rock-places, We are gone from the night, the winds and the clouds are empty: Soon the man in the West shall receive our message.

_JOFRID'S voice joins the other voices._

Men reject us, yet their house is unstable....

The slayers' hands are warm--the sound of their riding Reached us down the ages, ever approaching.

HALLGERD, _at the same time, her voice high over theirs._ Pack, ye rag-heaps--or I'll unravel you.