midnight
`` Time wore , and I spoke with the Wolfings and knew the speech of the kin , And was strange ` neath the roof no longer , as a lonely waif therein ; And I wrought as a child with my playmates and every hour looked on Unto the next hour 's joyance till the happy day was done . And going and coming amidst us was a woman tall and thin With hair like the hoary barley and silver streaks therein . And kind and sad of visage , as now I remember me , And she sat and told us stories when we were aweary with glee , And many of us she fondled , but me the most of all . And once from my sleep she waked me and bore me down the hall , In the hush of the very midnight , and I was feared thereat . But she brought me unto the dais , and there the warrior sat , Who took me up and kissed me , as erst within the wood ; And meseems in his arms I slumbered : but I wakened again and stood Alone with the kindly woman , and gone was the goodly man , And athwart the hush of the Folk-hall the moon shone bright and wan , And the woman dealt with a lamp hung up by a chain aloft , And she trimmed it and fed it with oil , while she chanted sweet and soft A song whose words I knew not : then she ran it up again , And up in the darkness above us died the length of its wavering chain . '' `` Yea , '' said the carline , `` this woman will have been the Hall-Sun that came before thee . What next dost thou remember ? ''