Me, happier, the Valkyrs
Shall waft from the war-deck,
Shall hail from the holmgang
Or helmet-strewn moorland.
And sword-strokes my shrift be,
Sharp spears be my leeches,
With heroes' hot corpses
High heaped for my pillow."
"Skall to the Viking!" shouted the Danes once more, at this outburst of
heathendom, common enough among their half-converted race, in times when
monasticism made so utter a divorce between the life of the devotee and
that of the worldling, that it seemed reasonable enough for either party
to have their own heaven and their own hell. After all, Hereward was not
original in his wish. He had but copied the death-song which his father's
friend and compeer, Siward Digre, the victor of Dunsinane, had sung for
himself some three years before.
All praised his poetry, and especially the quickness of his alliterations
(then a note of the highest art); and the old king filling not this time
the horn, but a golden goblet, bid him drain it and keep the goblet for
his song.
Young Sigtryg leapt up, and took the cup to Hereward. "Such a scald," he
said, "ought to have no meaner cup-bearer than a king's son."
Hereward drank it dry; and then fixing his eyes meaningly on the Prince,
dropt the Princess's ring into the cup, and putting it back into Sigtryg's
hand, sang,--
"The beaker I reach back
More rich than I took it.
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