Young Swaigder: or, The Force of Runes, and Other Ballads

THE HAIL STORM¹

 
As in Horunga haven
We fed the crow and raven,
I heard the tempest breaking
Of demon Thorgerd’s waking;
Sent by the fiend in anger,
With din and stunning clangor;
To crush our might intended,
Gigantic hail descended.
 
 
A pound the smallest pebble
Did weigh, and others treble;
It drifted, dealing slaughter,
And blood ran out like water,
Ran recking, red and horrid,
From battered cheek and forehead;
But, though so rudely greeted,
No Jornsberg man retreated.
 
 
With anger ever sharper,
Thorgerda fierce, and Yrpr,
Shot lightning from each finger,
Which sped and did not linger.
Then sank our brave in numbers
To cold, eternal slumbers;
There lay the good and gallant,
Renowned for warlike talent.
 
 
To bide the storm unable
Our chieftain hewed his cable,
And with his ship departed —
We follow, broken-hearted;
For in Horunga haven
Our bravest feed the raven;
We did our best, but no men
Can stand ’gainst hail and foemen.
 

ROSMER MEREMAN²

 
In Denmark once a lady dwelt,
Hellelil the name she bore;
A castle new that lady built,
It shone all Denmark o’er.
 
 
Her daughter dear was stolen away,
She sought for her far and near;
The more she sought the less she found,
To her great distress and care.
 
 
She bid a noble ship be built,
Therein gilt masts did stand;
With valiant knights and courtmen bold
She caused it to be manned.
 
 
Her sons she followed to the strand,
With many a fond caress;
For eight long years they sailed away,
Enduring much distress.
 
 
For eight years had they sailed away,
So long they thought the tide,
When they sailed before a lofty hill,
And straight to land they hied.
 
 
Then peeped the Damsel Swanelil
Forth from the mountain brow:
“O whence can be these stranger swains,
As guests that seek us now?”
 
 
The youngest brother then replied,
So ready of speech was he:
“A widow’s three poor sons we are,
So long we’ve sailed the sea.
 
 
“Dame Hellelil our mother is,
We were born on Denmark’s ground;
From us our sister stolen was,
And her we have yet not found.”
 
 
“If thou wert born on Danish ground,
And Dame Hellelil be thy mother
Then I thy beloved sister am
And thou art my youngest brother.
 
 
“Now do thou hear, my youngest brother,
Why didst not at home remain?
If thou hadst a thousand thousand lives
Thou none of them couldst retain.”
 
 
She placed him in the smallest nook
She could in the house espy:
She bade him for sake of the highest God,
Neither to laugh nor cry.
 
 
Rosmer came from the ocean home,
And straight he fell to bann:
“O I can smell by my right hand
That here is a Christian man.”
 
 
“A Bird with a dead man’s shank in its mouth,
Chanced over our house to fly;
He cast it in, I cast it out,