And no Gottfried ever yet was a coward.

Let not my Hugo be the first." Then I took courage and spoke to him.
"I do not wish to be executioner," I said; "I would rather ride a-soldiering far away, and be in the drive of battle and the front of danger.

Let me be a soldier and a man-at-arms, my father.

I am sure I could become a war-captain and a great man!" Gottfried Gottfried stared blankly at me, and his blue-black hair rose in a crest--not with anger, of which he never showed any to me, but in sheer astonishment.

He continued to rub it with his hand, as if in this manner he might possibly reach an explanation of the mystery.
"Not wish to be Hereditary Executioner?
Why, are you not a Gottfried, the only son of a Gottfried, the only son of his father, who also was a Gottfried and Hereditary Red Axe of the Wolfmark?
Why, lad, before there was a Duke at all in the Wolfsberg, before he and his folk came out of the land of the Poles to fight with the Ritterdom of the North, we, the Gottfrieds of Thorn, wore the sign of the Red Axe and dwelt apart from all the men of the Mark.