mind, once so constitutionally firm, had become tremulously alive to
such airy influences), he had almost predetermined to assent to his
brother's prayer, when he departed to keep his dismal appointment with
the Morthwyrtha. The night was dim, but not dark; no moon shone, but
the stars, wan though frequent, gleamed pale, as from the farthest
deeps of the heaven; clouds grey and fleecy rolled slowly across the
welkin, veiling and disclosing, by turns, the melancholy orbs.

The Morthwyrtha, in her dark dress, stood within the circle of stones.
She had already kindled a fire at the foot of the bautastein, and its
glare shone redly on the grey shafts; playing through their forlorn
gaps upon the sward. By her side was a vessel, seemingly of pure
water, filled from the old Roman fountain, and its clear surface
flashed blood-red in the beams. Behind them, in a circle round both
fire and water, were fragments of bark, cut in a peculiar form, like
the head of an arrow, and inscribed with the mystic letters; nine were
the fragments, and on each fragment were graved the runes. In her
right hand the Morthwyrtha held her seid-staff, her feet were bare,
and her loins girt by the Hunnish belt inscribed with mystic letters;
from the belt hung a pouch or gipsire of bearskin, with plates of
silver. Her face, as Harold entered the circle, had lost its usual
calm--it was wild and troubled.

She seemed unconscious of Harold's presence, and her eye fixed and
rigid, was as that of one in a trance. Slowly, as if constrained by
some power not her own, she began to move round the ring with a
measured pace, and at last her voice broke low, hollow, and internal,
into a rugged chaunt, which may be thus imperfectly translated--

"By the Urdar-fount dwelling,