But Gawaine's home, more dainty than the rest,76
Betray'd his tastes exotic and luxurious
The walls of ice in furry hangings dress'd
Form'd an apartment elegant if curious!
Like some gigantic son of Major Ursa
Turn'd inside out by barbarous vice versâ.
Here then he lodged his royal guest and friend,77
And having placed a slice of seal before him,
Quoth he, "Thou ask'st me for my tale, attend;
Then give me thine, Heus renovo dolorem!"
Therewith the usage villanous and rough,
Schemed in cold blood by that malignant chough;
The fraudful dinner (its dessert a wife);78
The bridal roof with nose assaulting glaive;
The oak whose leaves with pinching imps were rife;
The atrocious trap into the Viking's cave;
The chief obdurate in his damn'd idea,
Of proving Freedom by a roast to Freya;
The graphic portrait of the Nuptial goddess;79
And diabolic if symbolic spit;
The hierarch's heresy on types and bodies;
And how at last he posed and silenced it;
All facts traced clearly to that corvus niger,
Were told with pathos that had touch'd a tiger,
So far the gentle sympathising Nine80
In dulcet strains have sung Sir Gawaine's woes;
What now remains they bid the historic line
With Dorian dryness unadorn'd disclose;
So counsel all the powers of fancy stretch,
Then leave the judge to finish off the wretch!
Along the beach Sir Gawaine and the hound81
Roved all the night, and at the dawn of day
Came unawares upon a squadron bound
To fish for whales, arrested in a bay
For want of winds, which certain Norway hags
Had squeezed from heaven and bottled up in bags.[13]
Straight when the seamen, fretting on the shore,82
Behold a wanderer clad as Freya's priest,
They rush, and round him kneeling, they implore
The runes, by which the winds may be released:
The spurious priest a gracious answer made,
And told them Freya sent him to their aid;
Bade them conduct himself and hound on board,83
And broil two portions of their choicest meat.
"The spell," quoth he, "our sacred arts afford
To free the wind is in the food we eat;
We dine, and dining exorcise the witches,
And loose the bags from their infernal stitches.
"Haste then, my children, and dispel the wind;84
Haste, for the bags are awfully inflating!"
The ship is gain'd. Both priest and dog have dined;
The crews assembled on the decks are waiting.
A heavier man arose the audacious priest,
And stately stepp'd he west and stately east!
Mutely invoked St. David and St. Brân85
To charge a stout north-western with their blessing;
Then clear'd his throat and lustily began
A howl of vowels huge from Taliessin.
Prone fell the crews before the thundering tunes,
In words like mountains roll'd the enormous runes!