There, on a lea where stands a cross Set up for monument, Thousands full fierce, that summer’s day, Filled keen war’s black intent. Let Scots, while Scots, praise Hardyknute; Let Norse the name aye dread; Aye how he foucht, aft how he spared, Sall latest ages read.” Here the story might seem to end, and here perhaps it was intended at first that it should end; but in the completer copies there are three more stanzas, taking us back to Hardyknute’s castle on the high hill. We are to fancy Hardyknute and his sons returning joyfully thither after the great victory:— “Loud and chill blew the westlin wind, Sair beat the heavy shower; Mirk grew the nicht ere Hardyknute Wan near his stately tower: His tower, that used with torches’ bleeze To shine sae far at nicht, Seemed now as black as mourning weed: Nae marvel sair he sich’d. ‘There’s nae licht in my lady’s bower; There’s nae licht in my hall; Nae blink shines round my Fairly fair, Nor ward stands on my wall. What bodes it? Robert, Thomas, say!’ Nae answer fits their dread. ‘Stand back, my sons! I’ll be your guide!’ But by they passed wi’ speed. ‘As fast I have sped ower Scotland’s faes.’ There ceased his brag of weir, Sair shamed to mind oucht but his dame And maiden Fairly fair. Black fear he felt, but what to fear He wist not yet with dread: Sair shook his body, sair his limbs; And all the warrior fled.” And so the fragment really ends, making us aware of some dreadful catastrophe, though what it is we know not. Something ghastly has happened in the castle during Hardyknute’s absence, but it is left untold. Only, by a kind of necessity of the imagination, we connect it somehow with that wounded knight whom Hardyknute had met lying on the ground as he was hurrying to the war, and whom he had left making his moan. Was he a fiend, or what?