so still, and shapeless, and undefined it had lain amongst the rank
weeds and night-shade and trailing creepers on the marge of the pool,
The laugh was low yet fearful to hear.

Slowly, the thing moved, and rose, and took the outline of a human
form; and the Prophetess beheld the witch whose sleep she had
disturbed by the Saxon's grave.

"Where is the banner?" said the witch, laying her hand on Hilda's arm,
and looking into her face with bleared and rheumy eyes, "where is the
banner thy handmaids were weaving for Harold the Earl? Why didst thou
lay aside that labour of love for Harold the King? Hie thee home, and
bid thy maidens ply all night at the work; make it potent with rune
and with spell, and with gums of the seid. Take the banner to Harold
the King as a marriage-gift; for the day of his birth shall be still
the day of his nuptials with Edith the Fair!"

Hilda gazed on the hideous form before her; and so had her soul fallen
from its arrogant pride of place, that instead of the scorn with which
so foul a pretender to the Great Art had before inspired the King-born
Prophetess, her veins tingled with credulous awe.

"Art thou a mortal like myself," she said after a pause, "or one of
those beings often seen by the shepherd in mist and rain, driving
before them their shadowy flocks? one of those of whom no man knoweth
whether they are of earth or of Helheim? whether they have ever known
the lot and conditions of flesh, or are but some dismal race between
body and spirit, hateful alike to gods and to men?"

The dreadful hag shook her head, as if refusing to answer the