in the thick brambles, that it might not be buried.
Then after a space, after they were gone away,
came the country-folk, who were still left there,
to where their lord's body lay without the head,
and were very sore at heart because of his murder,
and chiefly because they had not the head with the body.
Then said the spectator who previously beheld it
that the seamen had taken the head with them,
and it seemed to him, even as it was quite true,
that they had hidden the head in the wood somewhere about.
Then they all went seeking at last in the wood.
seeking everywhere among the thorns and brambles
if they might anywhere find the head.
There was eke a great wonder, that a wolf was sent,
by God's direction, to guard the head
against the other animals by day and night.
They went on seeking and always crying out,
as is often the wont of those who go through woods;
'Where art thou now, comrade? ' (And the head answered them,
'Here, here, here.' And so it cried out continually,
answering them all, as oft as any of them cried,
until they all came to it by means of those cries.
There lay the gray wolf who guarded the head,
and with his two feet had embraced the head,
greedy and hungry, and for God's care durst not
taste the head, but kept it against (other) animals.
Then they were astonished at the wolf's guardianship,
