'
Thereat men laughed, and the Alderman went down the Hall with those
bearers of gifts, and was away for a space while they drank and made
merry: but presently back they came from the treasury bearing loads
of goodly things which were laid on one of the endlong boards. Then
began the gift-giving: and first he gave unto Folk-might six golden
cups marvellously fashioned, the work of four generations of wrights
in the Dale, and he himself had wrought the last two thereof. To
Sun-beam he gave a girdle of gold, fashioned with great mastery,
whereon were images of the Gods and the Fathers, and warriors, and
beasts of the field and fowls of the air; and as he girt it about her
loins, he said in a soft voice so that few heard:
'Sun-beam, thou fair woman, time has been when thou wert to us as the
edge of the poisonous sword or the midnight torch of the murderer;
but now I know not how it will be, or if the grief which thou hast
given me will ever wear out or not. And now that I have beheld thee,
I have little to do to blame my son; for indeed when I look on thee I
cannot deem that there is any evil in thee.
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