HALLGERD
Or bad old women used to govern by fear.
To bed, to bed—we are all up too late.
STEINVOR (as she turns with ASTRID and ODDNY to the dais)
If beds are made for sleep we might sit long.
(They go out by the dais door.)
GUNNAR (as he enters hastily from the left)
Where are those women? There's some secret in them:
I have heard such others crying down to them.
HALLGERD
They turned foul-mouthed, they beckoned evil toward us—
I drove them forth a breath ago.
GUNNAR
Forth? Whence?
HALLGERD
By the great door: they cried about the night.
(RANNVEIG follows GUNNAR in.)
GUNNAR
Nay, but I entered there and passed them not.
Mother, where are the women?
RANNVEIG
I saw none come.