The Roots of the Mountains<br />Wherein Is Told Somewhat of the Lives of the Men of Burgdale, Their by William Morris (best authors to read txt) 📕

my cost.  Now I perceive that thou longest for the wood and the innermost of it; and wot ye what?  This longing will at whiles entangle the sons of our chieftains, though this Alderman that now is hath been free therefrom, which is well for him.  For, time was this longing came over me, and I went whither it led me: overlong it were to tell of all that befell me because of it, and how my heart bled thereby.  So sorry were the tidings that came of it, that now meseemeth my heart should be of stone and not my face, had it not been for the love wherewith I have loved the sons of the kindred.  Therefore, son, it were not ill if ye went west away with the merchants this winter, and learned the dealings of the cities, and brought us back tales thereof.’

But Gold-mane cried out somewhat angrily, ‘I tell thee, foster-father, that I have no mind for the cities and their men and their fools and their whores and their runagates.  But as for the wood and its wonders, I have done with it, save for hunting there along with others of the Folk.  So let thy mind be at ease; and for p. 22the rest, I will do what the Alderman commandeth, and whatso my father craveth of me.’

‘And that is well, son,’ said Stone-face, ‘if what ye say come to pass, as sore I misdoubt me it will not.  But well it were, well it were!  For such things are in the wood, yea and before ye come to its innermost, as may well try the stoutest heart.  Therein are Kobbolds, and Wights that love not men, things unto whom the grief of men is as the sound of the fiddle-bow unto us.  And there abide the ghosts of those that may not rest; and there wander the dwarfs and the mountain-dwellers, the dealers in marvels, the givers of gifts that destroy Houses; the forgers of the curse that clingeth and the murder that flitteth to and fro.  There moreover are the lairs of Wights in the shapes of women, that draw a young man’s heart out of his body, and fill up the empty place with desire never to be satisfied, that they may mock him therewith and waste his manhood and destroy him.  Nor say I much of the strong-thieves that dwell there, since thou art a valiant sword; or of them who have been made Wolves of the Holy Places; or of the Murder-Carles, the remnants and off-scourings of wicked and wretched Folks—men who think as much of the life of a man as of the life of a fly.  Yet happiest is the man whom they shall tear in pieces, than he who shall live burdened by the curse of the Foes of the Gods.’

The housemaster looked on his son as the old carle spake, and a cloud gathered on his face a while; and when Stone-face had made an end he spake:

‘This is long and evil talk for the end of a merry day, O fosterer!  Wilt thou not drink a draught, O Redesman, and then stand up and set thy fiddle-bow a-dancing, and cause it draw some fair words after it?  For my cousin’s face hath grown sadder than a young maid’s should be, and my son’s eyes gleam with thoughts that are far away from us and abroad in the wild-wood seeking marvels.’

Then arose a man of middle-age from the top of the endlong p. 23bench on the east side of the hall: a man tall, thin and scant-haired, with a nose like an eagle’s neb: he reached out his hand for the bowl, and when they had given to him he handled it, and raised it aloft and cried:

‘Here I drink a double health to Face-of-god and the Bride, and the love that lieth between them, and the love betwixt them twain and us.’

He drank therewith, and the wine went up and down the hall, and all men drank, both carles and queens, with shouting and great joy.  Then Redesman put down the cup (for it had come into his hands again), and reached his hand to the wall behind him, and took down his fiddle hanging there in its case, and drew it out and fell to tuning it, while the hall grew silent to hearken: then he handled the bow and laid it on the strings till they wailed and chuckled sweetly, and when the song was well awake and stirring briskly, then he lifted up his voice and sang:

The Minstrel saith:

‘O why on this morning, ye maids, are ye tripping
   Aloof from the meadows yet fresh with the dew,
Where under the west wind the river is lipping
   The fragrance of mint, the white blooms and the blue?

For rough is the Portway where panting ye wander;
   On your feet and your gown-hems the dust lieth dun;
Come trip through the grass and the meadow-sweet yonder,
   And forget neath the willows the sword of the sun.

The Maidens answer:

Though fair are the moon-daisies down by the river,
   And soft is the grass and the white clover sweet;
Though twixt us and the rock-wall the hot glare doth quiver,
   And the dust of the wheel-way is dun on our feet;

Yet here on the way shall we walk on this morning
   Though the sun burneth here, and sweet, cool is the mead;
p. 24For here when in old days the Burg gave its warning,
   Stood stark under weapons the doughty of deed.

Here came on the aliens their proud words a-crying,
   And here on our threshold they stumbled and fell;
Here silent at even the steel-clad were lying,
   And here were our mothers the story to tell.

Here then on the morn of the eve of the wedding
   We pray to the Mighty that we too may bear
Such war-walls for warding of orchard and steading,
   That the new days be merry as old days were dear.’

Therewith he made an end, and shouts and glad cries arose all about the hall; and an old man arose and cried: ‘A cup to the memory of the Mighty of the Day of the Warding of the Ways.’  For you must know this song told of a custom of the Folk, held in memory of a time of bygone battle, wherein they had overthrown a great host of aliens on the Portway betwixt the river and the cliffs, two furlongs from the gate of Burgstead.  So now two weeks before Midsummer those maidens who were presently to be wedded went early in the morning to that place clad in very fair raiment, swords girt to their sides and spears in their hands, and abode there on the highway from morn till even as though they were a guard to it.  And they made merry there, singing songs and telling tales of times past: and at the sunsetting their grooms came to fetch them away to the Feast of the Eve of the Wedding.

While the song was a-singing Face-of-god took the Bride’s hand in his and caressed it, and was soft and blithe with her; and she reddened and trembled for pleasure, and called to mind wedding feasts that had been, and fair brides that she had seen thereat, and she forgot her fears and her heart was at peace again.

And Iron-face looked well-pleased on the two from time to time, and smiled, but forbore words to them.

But up and down the hall men talked with one another about p. 25things long ago betid: for their hearts were high and they desired deeds; but in that fair Dale so happy were the years from day to day that there was but little to tell of.  So deepened the night and waned, and Gold-mane and the Bride still talked sweetly together, and at whiles kindly to the others; and by seeming he had clean forgotten the wood and its wonders.

Then at last the Alderman called for the cup of good-night, and men drank thereof and went their ways to bed.

CHAPTER IV.  FACE-OF-GOD FARETH TO THE WOOD AGAIN.

When it was the earliest morning and dawn was but just beginning, Face-of-god awoke and rose up from his bed, and came forth into the hall naked in his shirt, and stood by the hearth, wherein the piled-up embers were yet red, and looked about and could see nothing stirring in the dimness: then he fetched water and washed the night-tide off him, and clad himself in haste, and was even as he was yesterday, save that he left his bow and quiver in their place and took instead a short casting-spear; moreover he took a leathern scrip and went therewith to the buttery, and set therein bread and flesh and a little gilded beaker; and all this he did with but little noise; for he would not be questioned, lest he should have to answer himself as well as others.

Thus he went quietly out of doors, for the door was but latched, since no bolts or bars or locks were used in Burgstead, and through the town-gate, which stood open, save when rumours of war were about.  He turned his face straight towards Wildlake’s Way, walking briskly, but at whiles looking back over his shoulder toward the East to note what way was made by the dawning, and how the sky lightened above the mountain passes.

p. 26By then he was come to the place where the Maiden Ward was held in the summer the dawn was so far forward that all things had their due colours, and were clear to see in the shadowless day.  It was a bright morning, with an easterly air stirring that drave away the haze and dried the meadows, which had otherwise been rimy; for it was cold.  Gold-mane lingered on the place a little, and his eyes fell on the road, as dusty yet as in Redesman’s song; for the autumn had been very dry, and the strip of green that edged the outside of the way was worn and dusty also.  On the edge of it, half in the dusty road, half on the worn grass, was a long twine of briony red-berried and black-leaved; and right in the midst of the road were two twigs of great-leaved sturdy pollard oak, as though they had been thrown aside there yesterday by women or children a-sporting; and the deep white dust yet held the marks of feet, some bare, some shod, crossing each other here and there.  Face-of-god smiled as he passed on, as a man with a happy thought; for his mind showed him a picture of the Bride as she would be leading the Maiden Ward next summer, and singing first among the singers, and he saw her as clearly as he had often seen her verily, and before him was the fashion of her hands and all her body, and the little mark on her right wrist, and the place where her arm whitened, because the sleeve guarded it against the sun, which had long been pleasant unto him, and the little hollow in her chin, and the lock of red-brown hair waving in the wind above her brow, and shining in the sun as brightly as the Alderman’s cunningest work of golden wire.  Soft and sweet seemed that picture, till he almost seemed to hear her sweet voice calling to him, and desire of her so took hold of the youth, that it stirred him up to go swiftlier as he strode on, the day brightening behind him.

Now was it nigh sunrise, and he began to meet folk on the way, though not many; since for most their way lay afield, and not towards the Burg.  The first was a Woodlander, tall and gaunt, striding beside his ass, whose panniers were laden with p. 27charcoal.  The carle’s daughter, a little maiden of seven winters, riding on the ass’s back betwixt the panniers, and prattling to herself in the cold morning; for she was pleased with the clear light in the east, and the smooth wide turf of the meadows, as one who had not often been far from the shadow of the heavy trees of the wood, and their dark wall round about the clearing where they dwelt.  Face-of-god gave the twain the sele of the day in merry fashion as he passed them by, and the sober dark-faced man nodded to him but spake no word, and the child stayed her prattle to watch him as he went by.

Then came the sound of the rattle of wheels, and, as he doubled an angle of the rock-wall, he came upon a wain drawn by four dun kine, wherein lay a young woman all muffled up against the cold with furs and cloths; beside the yoke-beasts went her man,