The wind sends hither The snarling sea-hounds. -What flaming thunder From thousand voices! Steel-weapons redden With stains of warfare! The shields are clashing! See, sand-clouds rising, Speer-billows rolling Round Tambarskelve! Hard is his fortune!. Fetch forth the wagon, (On the way) O yeomen, yield not, Circle and save him! Eindride, aid now Build a shield-bulwark For him bow-bending! They press to the river,— What is it that's done? What makes me thus quiver? The peasants are staying, Let me pass o'er! Where is Eindride! Glances of pity Fear lest they show it, Flee lest they greet me So I must know it: Two deaths there will meet me!— Room! I must see: Oh, it is they! Can it so be?— Yes, it is they! Pride of the peasants Snared in a pitfall, Time-honored Trönder, Tambarskelve. White-haired and honored, Up, up, ye peasants, he has fallen, Daughter of Haakon from Hjörungavaag;— To you I appeal, peasant-warriors: My aged husband has fallen. See, see, here is blood on his blanching hair, For cold it becomes, while vain is your vengeance. Up, up, warriors, your chieftain has fallen, Your honor, your father, the joy of your children, Legend of all the valley, hero of all the land,Here he has fallen, will you not avenge him? Murdered with malice within the king's hall, The ting-hall, the hall of the law, thus murdered, Murdered by him whom the law holds highest, From heaven will lightning fall on the land, If thus left unpurged by the flames of vengeance. Launch the long-ships from land! Einar's nine long-ships are lying here, Let them hasten vengeance on Harald! If he stood here, Haakon Ivarson, If he stood here on the hill, my kinsman, Oh, peasants, hear me, my husband has fallen, The high-seat of my thoughts through years half a hundred! Overthrown it now is, and by its right side, Our only son fell, oh, all our future! All is now empty between my two arms; If I go and stay in the places of strangers,- Ah, them, themselves I shall miss. Odin in Valhall I dare not beseech; |