XI. Willing we chant
Of the youthful king
A lay of victory--
Luck to our singing!
But he who listens
Must learn by heart
This spear-maid's song
And spread it further.


XII.
* * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * *
On bare-backed steeds
We start out swiftly
With swords unsheathed
From hence away.


The nine centuries, above referred to, of Roman invasion, intestine
war, and ecclesiastical rivalry between the Pictish, Columban and
Catholic Churches had now, under Malcolm II, produced a kingdom of
Scotland, throughout which the Catholic was in a fair way to become
the predominant Church, and in which the authority of the Scottish
Crown was for the time being, nominally, but in the north merely
nominally, supreme on the mainland from the Tweed to the Pentland