contrast in appearance the narrow garb and shaven chins of those
around, that the Duke was roused from his reverie at the sight, and
marvelling why one, evidently a chief of high rank, had neither graced
the banquet in his honour, nor been presented to his notice, he turned
to the Earl of Hereford, who approached him with gay salutation, and
inquired the name and title of the bearded man in the loose flowing
robe.

"Know you not, in truth?" said the lively Earl, in some wonder. "In
him you see the great rival of Godwin. He is the hero of the Danes,
as Godwin is of the Saxons, a true son of Odin, Siward, Earl of the
Northumbrians." [67]

"Norse Dame be my aid,--his fame hath oft filled my ears, and I should
have lost the most welcome sight in merrie England had I not now
beheld him."

Therewith, the Duke approached courteously, and, doffing the cap he
had hitherto retained, he greeted the old hero with those compliments
which the Norman had already learned in the courts of the Frank.

The stout Earl received them coldly, and replying in Danish to
William's Romance-tongue, he said:

"Pardon, Count of the Normans, if these old lips cling to their old
words. Both of us, methinks, date our lineage from the lands of the
Norse. Suffer Siward to speak the language the sea-kings spoke. The
old oak is not to be transplanted, and the old man keeps the ground
where his youth took root."