The Hollow Land

The Hollow Land

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Hollow Land, by William Morris
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Title: The Hollow Land
Author: William Morris
Release Date: May 31, 2005 [eBook #15948]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
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HOLLOW LAND***
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The Hollow Land
William Morris
"We find in ancient story wonders many told, Of heroes in great glory,
with spirit free and bold; Of joyances and high-tides, of weeping and of
woe, Of noble reckon striving, mote ye now wonders know." -
Niebelungen Lied (see Carlylefs Miscellanies)
STRUGGLING IN THE WORLD.
Do you know where it is -- the Hollow Land?
I have been looking for it now so long, trying to find it again the
Hollow Land for there I saw my love first.
I wish to tell you how I found it first of all; but I am old, my memory
fails me: you must wait and let me think if I perchance can tell you how
it happened. Yea, in my ears is a confused noise of trumpet-blasts

singing over desolate moors, in my ears and eyes a clashing and
clanging of horse-hoofs, a ringing and glittering of steel; drawn-back
lips, set teeth, shouts, shrieks, and curses.
How was it that no one of us ever found it till that day? for it is near our
country: but what time have we to look for it, or any good thing; with
such biting carking cares hemming us in on every side-cares about
great things-mighty things: mighty things, 0 my brothers! or rather little
things enough, if we only knew it. Lives passed in turmoil, in making
one another unhappy; in bitterest misunderstanding of our brothers'
hearts, making those sad whom God has not made sad, alas, alas! What
chance for any of us to find the Hollow Land? What time even to look
for it?
Yet who has not dreamed of it? Who, half miserable yet the while, for
that he knows it is but a dream, has not felt the cool waves round his
feet, the roses crowning him, and through the leaves of beech and lime
the many whispering winds of the Hollow Land?
Now, my name was Florian, and my house was the house of the Lilies;
and of that house was my father lord, and after him my eldest brother
Amald; and me they called Florian de Liliis.
Moreover, when my father was dead, there arose a feud between the
Lilies' house and Red Harald; and this that follows is the history of it.
Lady Swanhilda, Red Harald's mother, was a widow, with one son. Red
Harald; and when she had been in widowhood two years, being of
princely blood, and besides comely and fierce. King Urrayne sent to
demand her in marriage. And I remember seeing the procession leaving
the town, when I was quite a child; and many young knights and
squires attended the Lady Swanhilda as pages, and amongst them,
Amald, my eldest brother.
And as I gazed out of the window, I saw him walking by the side of her
horse, dressed in white and gold very delicately; but as he went it
chanced that he stumbled. Now he was one of those that held a golden
canopy over the lady's head, so that it now sunk into wrinkles, and the
lady had to bow her head full low, and even then the gold brocade
caught in one of the long slim gold flowers that were wrought round
about the crown she wore. She flushed up in her rage, and her smooth
face went suddenly into the carven wrinkles of a wooden water-spout,
and she caught at the brocade with her left hand, and pulled it away

furiously, so that the warp and woof were twisted out of their place, and
many gold threads were left dangling about the crown; but Swanhilda
stared about when she rose, then smote my brother across the mouth
with her gilded sceptre, and the red blood flowed all about his garments;
yet he only turned exceeding pale, and dared say no word, though he
was heir to the house of the Lilies: but my small heart swelled with
rage, and I vowed revenge, and, as it seems, he did too.
So when Swanhilda had been queen three years, she suborned many of
King Urrayne's knights and lords, and slew her husband as he slept, and
reigned in his stead. And her son, Harald, grew up to manhood, and