[T]he Beaming man laid his hand on Wolfkettle’s rein and said: “Lo you, neighbour, if thy Vala hath seen nought, yet hath this old man seen somewhat, and that somewhat even as the little lad saw it. Many a mother’s son shall fall before the Welshmen.”

But Wolfkettle shook his rein free, and his face reddened as of one who is angry, yet he kept silence, while the Elking said:

“Let be, Toti! for he that lives shall tell the tale to the foreseers, and shall make them wiser than they are today.”

Then laughed Toti, as one who would not be thought to be too heedful of the morrow. But Wolfkettle brake out into speech and rhyme, and said:

“O warriors, the Wolfing kindred shall live or it shall die;


And alive it shall be as the oak-tree when the summer storm goes by;


But dead it shall be as its bole, that they hew for the corner-post


Of some fair and mighty folk-hall, and the roof of a war-fain host.”