But what chiefly distinguished this personage, was that peculiar dignity, so simple, so sedate, which no pomp seems to dazzle, no danger to disturb; and which perhaps arises from a strong sense of self-dependence, and is connected with self-respect--a dignity common to the Indian and the Arab, and rare except in that state of society in which each man is a power in himself.

The Latin tragic poet touches close upon that sentiment in the fine lines-- "Rex est qui metuit nihil; Hoc regnum sibi quisque dat." [93] So stood the brothers, Sweyn the outlaw and Harold the Earl, before the reputed prophetess.

She looked on both with a steady eye, which gradually softened almost into tenderness, as it finally rested upon the pilgrim.
"And is it thus," she said at last, "that I see the first-born of Godwin the fortunate, for whom so often I have tasked the thunder, and watched the setting sun?
for whom my runes have been graven on the bark of the elm, and the Scin-laeca [94] been called in pale splendour from the graves of the dead ?" "Hilda," said Sweyn, "not now will I accuse thee of the seeds thou hast sown: the harvest is gathered and the sickle is broken.

Abjure thy dark Galdra [95], and turn as I to the sole light in the future, which shines from the tomb of the Son Divine." The Prophetess bowed her head and replied: "Belief cometh as the wind.

Can the tree say to the wind, 'Rest thou on my boughs,' or Man to Belief, 'Fold thy wings on my heart'?
Go where thy soul can find comfort, for thy life hath passed from its use on earth.
And when I would read thy fate, the runes are as blanks, and the wave sleeps unstirred on the fountain.