The House of the Wolfings

The House of the Wolfings, by
William Morris

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The House of the Wolfings, by William
Morris
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The House of the Wolfings A Tale of the House of the Wolfings
and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse
Author: William Morris
Release Date: May 4, 2005 [eBook #2885]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE
OF THE WOLFINGS***

Transcribed from the 1904 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by David
Price, email [email protected]

THE HOUSE OF THE WOLFINGS A TALE OF THE HOUSE OF
THE WOLFINGS AND ALL THE KINDREDS OF THE MARK
WRITTEN IN PROSE AND IN VERSE by William Morris
Whiles in the early Winter eve We pass amid the gathering night Some
homestead that we had to leave Years past; and see its candles bright
Shine in the room beside the door Where we were merry years agone
But now must never enter more, As still the dark road drives us on.
E'en so the world of men may turn At even of some hurried day And
see the ancient glimmer burn Across the waste that hath no way; Then
with that faint light in its eyes A while I bid it linger near And nurse in
wavering memories The bitter-sweet of days that were.
CHAPTER I
--THE DWELLINGS OF MID-MARK
The tale tells that in times long past there was a dwelling of men beside
a great wood. Before it lay a plain, not very great, but which was, as it
were, an isle in the sea of woodland, since even when you stood on the
flat ground, you could see trees everywhere in the offing, though as for
hills, you could scarce say that there were any; only swellings-up of the
earth here and there, like the upheavings of the water that one sees at
whiles going on amidst the eddies of a swift but deep stream.
On either side, to right and left the tree-girdle reached out toward the
blue distance, thick close and unsundered, save where it and the plain
which it begirdled was cleft amidmost by a river about as wide as the
Thames at Sheene when the flood-tide is at its highest, but so swift and
full of eddies, that it gave token of mountains not so far distant, though
they were hidden. On each side moreover of the stream of this river
was a wide space of stones, great and little, and in most places above
this stony waste were banks of a few feet high, showing where the
yearly winter flood was most commonly stayed.
You must know that this great clearing in the woodland was not a
matter of haphazard; though the river had driven a road whereby men
might fare on each side of its hurrying stream. It was men who had

made that Isle in the woodland.
For many generations the folk that now dwelt there had learned the
craft of iron-founding, so that they had no lack of wares of iron and
steel, whether they were tools of handicraft or weapons for hunting and
for war. It was the men of the Folk, who coming adown by the
river-side had made that clearing. The tale tells not whence they came,
but belike from the dales of the distant mountains, and from dales and
mountains and plains further aloof and yet further.
Anyhow they came adown the river; on its waters on rafts, by its shores
in wains or bestriding their horses or their kine, or afoot, till they had a
mind to abide; and there as it fell they stayed their travel, and spread
from each side of the river, and fought with the wood and its wild
things, that they might make to themselves a dwelling-place on the face
of the earth.
So they cut down the trees, and burned their stumps that the grass
might grow sweet for their kine and sheep and horses; and they diked
the river where need was all through the plain, and far up into the
wild-wood to bridle the winter floods: and they made them boats to
ferry them over, and to float down stream and track up-stream: they
fished the river's eddies also with net and with line; and drew drift from
out of it of far- travelled wood and other matters; and the gravel of its
shallows they washed for gold; and it became their friend, and they
loved it, and gave it a