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) 📗

my body are plighted to this woman, the Bride of the House of the Steer!’

His face was flushed and bright as he spoke, but as his words ceased he noted how feebly her hand lay in his, and his face fell, and he gazed on her timidly.  But she lay quiet, and said softly and slowly:

‘O Fathers of my kindred!  O Warrior and God of the Earth! bear witness that I plight my troth to this man, to lie in his grave if I die, and in his bed if I live.’

And she smiled on him again, and then closed her eyes; but opened them presently once more, and said:

‘Dear friend, how fared it with Gold-mane to-day?’

Said Folk-might: ‘So well he did, that none might have done better.  He fared in the fight as if he had been our Father the Warrior: he is a great chieftain.’

She said: ‘Wilt thou give him this message from me, that in p. 381no wise he forget the oath which he swore upon the finger-ring as it lay on the sundial of the Garden of the Face?  And say, moreover, that I am sorry that we shall part, and have between us such breadth of wild-wood and mountain-neck.’

‘Yea, surely will I give thy message,’ said Folk-might; and in his heart he rejoiced, because he heard her speak as if she were sure of life.  Then she said faintly:

‘It is now thy work to depart from me, and to do as it behoveth a chieftain of the people and the Alderman of Silver-dale.  Depart, lest the leeches chide me: farewell, my dear!’

So he laid his face to hers and kissed her, and rose up and embraced Iron-face, and went his ways without looking back.

But just over the threshold he met old Hall-ward of the House of the Steer, who was at point to enter, and he greeted him kindly.  The old man looked on him steadily, and said: ‘To-morrow or the day after I will utter a word to thee, O Chief of the Wolf.’

‘In a good hour,’ said Folk-might, ‘for all thy words are true.’  Therewith he gat him away from the house, and came to Face-of-god, where he sat before the altar of the Crooked Sword; and now were the chiefs come back from their meat, and were sitting with him; there also were Wood-father and Wood-wont; but Bow-may was with the Sun-beam, who was resting softly in the fair meadow after all the turmoil.

So men made place for Folk-might beside the War-leader, who looked upon his face, and saw that it was sober and unsmiling, but not heavy or moody with grief.  So he deemed that all was as well as it might be with the Bride, and with a good heart fell to taking counsel with the others; and kindly and friendly were the redes which they held there, with no gainsaying of man by man, for the whole folk was glad at heart.

So there they ordered all matters duly for that present time, and by then they had made an end, it was past sunset, and men were lodged in the chief houses about the Market-stead.

Albeit, though they ate their meat with all joy of heart, and p. 382were merry in converse one with the other, the men of the Wolf would by no means feast in their Hall again till it had been cleansed and hallowed anew.

CHAPTER LI.  THE DEAD BORNE TO BALE: THE MOTE-HOUSE RE-HALLOWED.

On the morrow they bore to bale their slain men, and there withal what was left of the bodies of the four chieftains of the Great Undoing.  They brought them into a most fair meadow to the west of Silver-stead, where they had piled up a very great bale for the burning.  In that meadow was the Doom-ring and Thing-stead of the Folk of the Wolf, and they had hallowed it when they had first conquered Silver-dale, and it was deemed far holier than the Mote-house aforesaid, wherein the men of the kindred might hold no due court; but rather it was a Feast-hall, and a house where men had converse together, and wherein precious things and tokens of the Fathers were stored up.

The Thing-stead in the meadow was flowery and well-grassed, and a little stream winding about thereby nearly cast a ring around it; and beyond the stream was a full fair grove of oak-trees, very tall and ancient.  There then they burned the dead of the Host, wrapped about in exceeding fair raiment.  And when the ashes were gathered, the men of Burgdale and the Shepherds left those of their folk for the kindred to bury there in Silver-dale; for they said that they had a right to claim such guesting for them that had helped to win back the Dale.

But when the Burning was done and the bale quenched, and the ashes gathered and buried (and that was on the morrow), then men bore forth the Banners of the Jaws of the Wolf, and the Red Hand, and the Silver Arm, and the Golden Bushel, and the Ragged Sword, and the Wolf of the Woodland; and with great joy and p. 383triumph they brought them into the Mote-house and hung them up over the daïs; and they kindled fire on the Holy Hearth by holding up a disk of bright glass to the sun; and then they sang before the banners.  And this is somewhat of the song that they sang before them:

Why are ye wending?  O whence and whither?
   What shineth over the fallow swords?
What is the joy that ye bear in hither?
   What is the tale of your blended words?

No whither we wend, but here have we stayed us,
   Here by the ancient Holy Hearth;
Long have the moons and the years delayed us,
   But here are we come from the heart of the dearth.

We are the men of joy belated;
   We are the wanderers over the waste;
We are but they that sat and waited,
   Watching the empty winds make haste.

Long, long we sat and knew no others,
   Save alien folk and the foes of the road;
Till late and at last we met our brothers,
   And needs must we to the old abode.

For once on a day they prayed for guesting;
   And how were we then their bede to do?
Wild was the waste for the people’s resting,
   And deep the wealth of the Dale we knew.

Here were the boards that we must spread them
   Down in the fruitful Dale and dear;
Here were the halls where we would bed them:
   And how should we tarry otherwhere?

p. 384Over the waste we came together:
   There was the tangle athwart the way;
There was the wind-storm and the weather;
   The red rain darkened down the day.

But that day of the days what grief should let us,
   When we saw through the clouds the dale-glad sun?
We tore at the tangle that beset us,
   And stood at peace when the day was done.

Hall of the Happy, take our greeting!
   Bid thou the Fathers come and see
The Folk-signs on thy walls a-meeting,
   And deem to-day what men we be.

Look on the Holy Hearth new-litten,
   How the sparks fly twinkling up aloof!
How the wavering smoke by the sunlight smitten,
   Curls up around the beam-rich roof!

For here once more is the Wolf abiding,
   Nor ever more from the Dale shall wend,
And never again his head be hiding,
   Till all days be dark and the world have end.

CHAPTER LII.  OF THE NEW BEGINNING OF GOOD DAYS IN SILVER-DALE.

On the third day there was high-tide and great joy amongst all men from end to end of the Dale; and the delivered thralls were feasted and made much of by the kindreds, so that they scarce knew how to believe their own five senses that told them the good tidings.

For none strove to grieve them and torment them; what they p. 385would, that did they, and they had all things plenteously; since for all was there enough and to spare of goods stored up for the Dusky Men, as corn and wine and oil and spices, and raiment and silver.  Horses were there also, and neat and sheep and swine in abundance.  Withal there was the good and dear land; the waxing corn on the acres; the blossoming vines on the hillside; and about the orchards and alongside the ways, the plum-trees and cherry-trees and pear-trees that had cast their blossom and were overhung with little young fruit; and the fair apple-trees a-blossoming, and the chestnuts spreading their boughs from their twisted trunks over the green grass.  And there was the goodly pasture for the horses and the neat, and the thymy hill-grass for the sheep; and beyond it all, the thicket of the great wood, with its unfailing store of goodly timber of ash and oak and holly and yoke-elm.  There need no man lack unless man compelled him, and all was rich enough and wide enough for the waxing of a very great folk.

Now, therefore, men betook them to what was their own before the coming of the Dusky Men; and though at first many of the delivered thrall-folk feasted somewhat above measure, and though there were some of them who were not very brisk at working on the earth for their livelihood; yet were the most part of them quick of wit and deft of hand, and they mostly fell to presently at their cunning, both of husbandry and handicraft.  Moreover, they had great love of the kindreds, and especially of the Woodlanders, and strove to do all things that might pleasure them.  And as for those who were dull and listless because of their many torments of the last ten years, they would at least fetch and carry willingly for them of the kindreds; and these last grudged them not meat and raiment and house-room, even if they wrought but little for it, because they called to mind the evil days of their thralldom, and bethought them how few are men’s days upon the earth.

Thus all things throve in Silver-dale, and the days wore on p. 386toward the summer, and the Yule-tide rest beyond it, and the years beyond and far beyond the winning of Silver-dale.

CHAPTER LIII.  OF THE WORD WHICH HALL-WARD OF THE STEER HAD FOR FOLK-MIGHT.

But of the time then passing, it is to be said that the whole host abode in Silver-dale in great mirth and good liking, till they should hear tidings of Dallach and his company, who had followed hot-foot on the fleers of the Dusky Men.  And on the tenth day after the battle, Iron-face and his two sons and Stone-face were sitting about sunset under a great oak-tree by that stream-side which ran through the Mote-stead; there also was Folk-might, somewhat distraught because of his love for the Bride, who was now mending of her hurts.  As they sat there in all content they saw folk coming toward them, three in number, and as they drew nigher they saw that it was old Hall-ward of the Steer, and the Sun-beam and Bow-may following him hand in hand.

When they came to the brook Bow-may ran up to the elder to help him over the stepping-stones; which she did as one who loved him, as the old man was stark enough to have waded the water waist-deep.  She was no longer in her war-gear, but was clad after her wont of Shadowy Vale, in nought but a white woollen kirtle.  So she stood in the stream beside the stones, and let the swift water ripple up over her ankles, while the elder leaned on her shoulder and looked down upon her kindly.  The Sun-beam followed after them, stepping daintily from stone to stone, so that she was a fair sight to see; her face was smiling and happy, and as she stepped forth on to the green grass the colour flushed up in it, but she cast her eyes adown as one somewhat shamefaced.

So the chieftains rose up before the leader of the Steer, and p. 387Folk-might went up to him, and greeted him, and took his hand and kissed him on the cheek.  And Hall-ward said:

‘Hail to the chiefs of the kindred, and my earthly friends!’

Then Folk-might bade him sit down by him, and all the men sat down again; but the Sun-beam leaned her back against a sapling ash hard by, her feet set close together; and Bow-may went to and fro in short turns, keeping well within ear-shot.

Then said Hall-ward: ‘Folk-might, I have prayed thy kinswoman Bow-may to lead me to thee, that I might speak with thee; and