thy dark Galdra [95], and turn as I to the sole light in the future,
which shines from the tomb of the Son Divine."

The Prophetess bowed her head and replied:

"Belief cometh as the wind. Can the tree say to the wind, 'Rest thou
on my boughs,' or Man to Belief, 'Fold thy wings on my heart'? Go
where thy soul can find comfort, for thy life hath passed from its use
on earth. And when I would read thy fate, the runes are as blanks,
and the wave sleeps unstirred on the fountain. Go where the Fylgia
[96], whom Alfader gives to each at his birth, leads thee. Thou didst
desire love that seemed shut from thee, and I predicted that thy love
should awake from the charnel in which the creed that succeeds to the
faith of our sires inters life in its bloom. And thou didst covet the
fame of the Jarl and the Viking, and I blessed thine axe to thy hand,
and wove the sail for thy masts. So long as man knows desire, can
Hilda have power over his doom. But when the heart lies in ashes, I
raise but a corpse, that at the hush of the charm falls again into its
grave. Yet, come to me nearer, O Sweyn, whose cradle I rocked to the
chaunt of my rhyme."

The outlaw turned aside his face, and obeyed.

She sighed as she took his passive hand in her own, and examined the
lines on the palm. Then, as if by an involuntary impulse of fondness
and pity, she put aside his cowl and kissed his brow.

"Thy skein is spun, and happier than the many who scorn, and the few
who lament thee, thou shalt win where they lose. The steel shall not
smite thee, the storm shall forbear thee, the goal that thou yearnest