Lord everlasting,
Glode over earth, till the glorious creature
Sunk to her setting.
BATTLE OF BRUNANBURH.
With all the solemn pomp of church and state they bore the dead queen through the budding woods to Metz, and there laid her to rest in the crypt of the great domchurch,--the Basilica of Saint Arnulf her forefather. The beggar crouching on the steps saw the great king pass in with bowed head and fingers tugging at his beard, and knew that there is a grief which comes to both high and low, which enters alike palace halls and the hovel of the serf.
But deep as was Karl's sorrow, once that he had turned away from the tomb of his beloved queen, he set about the opening of the Saxon campaign with added determination. Used as were his liegemen to the tremendous energy of his movements, never before had they seen him bend all to his will with such resistless force. To put away the anguish of his grief, he threw himself headlong into the war-game, and welcomed the fresh tidings of ravages which served to inflame his wrath against the forest-dwellers.
He did not return to the ill-omened villa, but moved the court direct to Mayence. Leaving there the royal household in the charge of Queen Bertrada his mother, who came from Saint Denis at his asking, he embarked with his war-counts for Cologne in Olvir's long-ships.
Yet with all his eagerness to meet and crush the harrying forest-wolves, the first day of summer found him encamped at the Lippespring with but thirty thousand warriors,--only a few more than those with whom he had set out from Cologne. The greater part of the expected levies had been delayed by lack of forage and by the all but impassable morasses which covered the land during the heavy spring rains.
Far from damping his ardor, however, the delay and disappointment had served only to harden his resolve and call out his energy. Already he had swept across the mark from the Ems to the Weser, and back again to Paderborn, devastating all the southern shires of Westphalia. Where he had passed, the Saxon hamlets, scattered through the vast woods and on the broad heaths, were left as heaps of smouldering ruins. Their defenders lay slain among the ashes; while all others of their inhabitants whom the Franks could take thrall--man and woman and child--were being dragged away to exile and slavery in the South.
Had the forces of Wittikind been united, even so great a leader as Karl could not have thus harried the land unchecked. But the Frisians were yet making their way around the north of the Teutoburger Wald, and Bruno and Hessi had marched with their tribesmen, the Eastphalians and Engern, to foray along the northern borders of Thuringia. So, with only his Westphalians and Nordalbingians, Wittikind, no less wily than intrepid, had withdrawn into the hills which form the southern termination of the Teutoburger Wald, and awaited attack near where the Roman Varus perished with his legions. Though his host was smaller than the Frank's, it held the vantage of position.