The Valkyries

Never before in the memory of man had spring been so late in coming, and into mid-May had lasted the hurricanes and tempests of winter. Not even yet was the armoury of its storms and squalls wholly spent, and men, as they huddled by the fire and heard night by night, and day by day the bugling of the wind, and the hiss of rain and the patter of the hailstones, wondered what this subversion and stay of the wholesome seasons should portend. For now for many years had strange omens and forebodings shadowed and oppressed the earth