Читать книгу Saga of Halfred the Sigskald - Felix Dahn - Страница 8

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On the day after the wedding, however, Halfred rode alone into the pine wood. He said he wished to think, and he refused Harthild, who would have ridden with him, and also his blood brethren.

Darkly Harthild looked after him as he rode out of the court. But Sudha, the beautiful daughter of the King of Halogaland, also looked after him from an overhanging window, and slowly stroked her blue black hair back from her temples.

Vandrad the Skald, however, who often staid at Hartstein's Court, and who was there at that time, had long cherished love for Sudha. And he had often begged her freedom from King Hartstein, but in vain; the stern man had always denied him.

And heretofore she had not listened unwillingly when he sang. But when in these days he drew near to her, and spoke of a song which he had composed in her praise, she turned away and said—"On the lips of one only have the gods laid honey."

And when in the evening Halfred returned from the pinewood towards the royal castle, he was leading his weary horse by the bridle, for the moon shone but fitfully through storm-rent clouds, there sat upon the runic-stone hard by the road a closely veiled woman, and she cried to him and said—

"Halfred Hamundson, whereof on the first day of thy marriage, ridest thou alone in the pinewood?"

"If thou knowest that, O wise Vala," said Halfred, pausing—and he heaved a sigh—"then knowest thou more than Halfred Hamundson."

"I will tell thee," replied the veiled one. "Thou hast sought a woman, and found what is nigher to a man, rough, harsh, and devoid of charm. The Singing Swan hath paired thee with the vulture's brood. Thou chosest the hard flint stone, near to it lay glowing at thy feet the rose, exhaling fragrance towards thee."

Then Halfred sprang upon his horse, and cried to the veiled one—

"Nobler hold I it in a woman to be too cold, than too ardent." And he dashed away.

And only once, as he told me, he looked back. So beautiful, he said, had she never before been, in the full light of day, as now in the moonlight, her black eyes glittered—for she had torn off her head covering—and she called after him by his name, "Halfred," and her blue-black hair fluttered round her in the night wind like a ghostly veil.