The Roots of the Mountains<br />Wherein Is Told Somewhat of the Lives of the Men of Burgdale, Their by William Morris (best sales books of all time .txt) 📗

the Folk build the Gate and its wall, and had showed them how to fashion it: for he was a deft house-smith as well as a great warrior; and his name was Iron-hand.  So when the Alderman saw that this stone was wholly within the shadow of the Gate he knew that it was the due time for the hallowing-in of the Thing.  So he bade one of the wardens who sat beside him and had a great slug-horn slung about him, to rise and set the horn to his mouth.

So that man arose and blew three great blasts that went bellowing about the towers and down the street, and beat back again from the face of the sheer rocks and up them and over into the wild-wood; and the sound of it went on the light west-wind along the lips of the Dale toward the mountain wastes.  And many a p. 172goodman, when he heard the voice of the horn in the bright spring morning, left spade or axe or plough-stilts, or the foddering of the ewes and their younglings, and turned back home to fetch his sword and helm and hasten to the Thing, though he knew not why it was summoned: and women wending over the meadows, who had not yet heard of the battle in the wood, hearkened and stood still on the green grass or amidst the ripples of the ford, and the threat of coming trouble smote heavy on their hearts, for they knew that great tidings must be towards if a Thing must needs be summoned so close to the Great Folk-mote.

But now the Alderman stood up and spake amidst the silence that followed the last echoes of the horn:

‘Now is hallowed in this Gate-thing of the Burgstead Men and the Men of the Dale, wherein they shall take counsel concerning matters late befallen, that press hard upon them.  Let no man break the peace of the Holy Thing, lest he become a man accursed in holy places from the plain up to the mountain, and from the mountain down to the plain; a man not to be cherished of any man of good will, not be holpen with victuals or edge-tool or draught-beast; a man to be sheltered under no roof-tree, and warmed at no hearth of man: so help us the Warrior and the God of the Earth, and Him of the Face, and all the Fathers!’

When he had spoken men clashed their weapons in token of assent; and he sat down again, and there was silence for a space.  But presently came thrusting forward a goodman of the Dale, who seemed as if he had come hurriedly to the Thing; for his face was running down with sweat, his wide-rimmed iron cap sat awry over his brow, and he was girt with a rusty sword without a scabbard, and the girdle was ill-braced up about his loins.  So he said:

‘I am Red-coat of Waterless of the Lower Dale.  Early this morning as I was going afield I met on the way a man akin to me, Fox of Upton to wit, and he told me that men were being summoned to a Gate-thing.  So I turned back home, and caught up p. 173any weapon that came handy, and here I am, Alderman, asking thee of the tidings which hath driven thee to call this Thing so hard on the Great Folk-mote, for I know them nothing so.’

Then stood up Iron-face the Alderman and said: ‘This is well asked, and soon shall ye be as wise as I am on this matter.  Know ye, O men of Burgstead and the Dale, that we had not called this Gate-thing so hard on the Great Folk-mote had not great need been to look into troublous matters.  Long have ye dwelt in peace, and it is years on years now since any foeman hath fallen on the Dale: but, as ye will bear in mind, last autumn were there ransackings in the Dale and amidst of the Shepherds after the manner of deeds of war; and it troubleth us that none can say who wrought these ill deeds.  Next, but a little while agone, was Wood-grey, a valiant goodman of the Woodlanders, slain close to his own door by evil men.  These men we took at first for mere gangrel felons and outcasts from their own folk: though there were some who spoke against that from the beginning.

‘But thirdly are new tidings again: for three days ago, while some of the folk were hunting peaceably in the Wild-wood and thinking no evil, they were fallen upon of set purpose by a host of men-at-arms, and nought would serve but mere battle for dear life, so that many of our neighbours were hurt, and three slain outright; and now mark this, that those who there fell upon our folk were clad and armed even as the two felons that slew Wood-grey, and moreover were like them in aspect of body.  Now stand forth Hall-face my son, and answer to my questions in a loud voice, so that all may hear thee.’

So Hall-face stood forth, clad in gleaming war-gear, with an axe over his shoulder, and seemed a doughty warrior.  And Iron-face said to him:

‘Tell me, son, those whom ye met in the wood, and of whom ye brought home two captives, how much like were they to the murder-carles at Wood-grey’s?’

Said Hall-face: ‘As like as peas out of the same cod, and to p. 174our eyes all those whom we saw in the wood might have been sons of one father and one mother, so much alike were they.’

‘Yea,’ said the Alderman; ‘now tell me how many by thy deeming fell upon you in the wood?’

Said Hall-face: ‘We deemed that if they were any less than threescore, they were little less.’

‘Great was the odds,’ said the Alderman.  ‘Or how many were ye?’

‘One score and seven,’ said Hall-face.

Said the Alderman: ‘And yet ye escaped with life all save those three?’

Hall-face said: ‘I deem that scarce one should have come back alive, had it not been that as we fought came a noise like the howling of wolves, and thereat the foemen turned and fled, and there followed on the fleers tall men clad in sheep-brown raiment, who smote them down as they fled.’

‘Here then is the story, neighbours,’ said the Alderman, ‘and ye may see thereby that if those slayers of Wood-grey were outcast, their band is a great one; but it seemeth rather that they were men of a folk whose craft it is to rob with the armed hand, and to slay the robbed; and that they are now gathering on our borders for war.  Yet, moreover, they have foemen in the woods who should be fellows-in-arms of us.  How sayest thou, Stone-face?  Thou art old, and hast seen many wars in the Dale, and knowest the Wild-wood to its innermost.

‘Alderman,’ said Stone-face, ‘and ye neighbours of the Dale, maybe these foes whom ye have met are not of the race of man, but are trolls and wood-wights.  Now if they be trolls it is ill, for then is the world growing worser, and the wood shall be right perilous for those who needs must fare therein.  Yet if they be men it is a worse matter; for the trolls would not come out of the waste into the sunlight of the Dale.  But these foes, if they be men, are lusting after our fair Dale to eat it up, and it is most like that they are gathering a huge host to fall upon us at home.  p. 175Such things I have heard of when I was young, and the aspect of the evil men who overran the kindreds of old time, according to all tales and lays that I have heard, is even such as the aspect of those whom we have seen of late.  As to those wolves who saved the neighbours and chased their foemen, there is one here who belike knoweth more of all this than we do, and that, O Alderman, is thy son whom I have fostered, Face-of-god to wit.  Bid him answer to thy questioning, and tell us what he hath seen and heard of late; then shall we verily know the whole story as far as it can be known.’

Then men pressed round, and were eager to hear what Face-of-god would be saying.  But or ever the Alderman could begin to question him, the throng was cloven by new-comers, and these were the men who had been sent to bring home the corpses of the Dusky Men: so they had cast loaded hooks into the Weltering Water, and had dragged up him whom Face-of-god had shoved into the eddy, and who had sunk like a stone just where he fell, and now they were bringing him on a bier along with him who had been slain a-land.  They were set down in the place before the Alderman, and men who had not seen them before looked eagerly on them that they might behold the aspect of their foemen; and nought lovely were they to look on; for the drowned man was already bleached and swollen with the water, and the other, his face was all wryed and twisted with that spear-thrust in the mouth.

Then the Alderman said: ‘I would question my son Face-of-god.  Let him stand forth!’

And therewith he smiled merrily in his son’s face, for he was standing right in front of him; and he said:

‘Ask of me, Alderman, and I will answer.’

‘Kinsman,’ said Iron-face, ‘look at these two dead men, and tell me, if thou hast seen any such besides those two murder-carles who were slain at Carlstead; or if thou knowest aught of their folk?’

p. 176Said Face-of-god: ‘Yesterday I saw six others like to these both in array and of body, and three of them I slew, for we were in battle with them early in the morning.’

There was a murmur of joy at this word, since all men took these felons for deadly foemen; but Iron-face said: ‘What meanest thou by “we”?’

‘I and the men who had guested me overnight,’ said Face-of-god, ‘and they slew the other three; or rather a woman of them slew the felons.’

‘Valiant she was; all good go with her hand!’ said the Alderman.  ‘But what be these people, and where do they dwell?’

Said Face-of-god: ‘As to what they are, they are of the kindred of the Gods and the Fathers, valiant men, and guest-cherishing: rich have they been, and now are poor: and their poverty cometh of these same felons, who mastered them by numbers not to be withstood.  As to where they dwell: when I say the name of their dwelling-place men mock at me, as if I named some valley in the moon: yet came I to Burgdale thence in one day across the mountain-necks led by sure guides, and I tell thee that the name of their abode is Shadowy Vale.’

‘Yea,’ said Iron-face, ‘knoweth any man here of Shadowy Vale, or where it is?’

None answered for a while; but there was an old man who was sitting on the shafts of a wain on the outskirts of the throng, and when he heard this word he asked his neighbour what the Alderman was saying, and he told him.  Then said that elder:

‘Give me place; for I have a word to say hereon.’  Therewith he arose, and made his way to the front of the ring of men, and said: ‘Alderman, thou knowest me?’

‘Yea,’ said Iron-face, ‘thou art called the Fiddle, because of thy sweet speech and thy minstrelsy; whereof I mind me well in the time when I was young and thou no longer young.’

‘So it is,’ said the Fiddle.  ‘Now hearken!  When I was very young I heard of a vale lying far away across the mountain-necks; p. 177a vale where the sun shone never in winter and scantily in summer; for my sworn foster-brother, Fight-fain, a bold man and a great hunter, had happened upon it; and on a day in full midsummer he brought me thither; and even now I see the Vale before me as in a picture; a marvellous place, well grassed, treeless, narrow, betwixt great cliff-walls of black stone, with a green river running through it towards a yawning gap and a huge force.  Amidst that Vale was a doom-ring of black stones, and nigh thereto a feast-hall well builded of the like stones, over whose door was carven the image of a wolf with red gaping jaws, and within it (for we entered into it) were stone benches on the daïs.  Thence we came away, and thither again we went in late autumn, and so dusk and cold it was at that season, that we knew not what to call it save the valley of deep shade.  But its real name we never knew; for there was no man there to give us a name