The Roots of the Mountains | Page 3

was toward the
high fells,) but not in any cleft or ghyll. The wood itself thereabout was
thick, a blended growth of diverse kinds of trees, but most of oak and
ash; light and air enough came through their boughs to suffer the holly
and bramble and eglantine and other small wood to grow together into
thickets, which no man could pass without hewing a way. But before it
is told whereto Wildlake's Way led, it must be said that on the east side
of the ghyll, where it first began just over the Portway, the hill's brow
was clear of wood for a certain space, and there, overlooking all the

Dale, was the Mote-stead of the Dalesmen, marked out by a great ring
of stones, amidst of which was the mound for the Judges and the Altar
of the Gods before it. And this was the holy place of the men of the
Dale and of other folk whereof the tale shall now tell.
For when Wildlake's Way had gone some three miles from the Mote-
stead, the trees began to thin, and presently afterwards was a clearing
and the dwellings of men, built of timber as may well be thought.
These houses were neither rich nor great, nor was the folk a mighty
folk, because they were but a few, albeit body by body they were stout
carles enough. They had not affinity with the Dalesmen, and did not
wed with them, yet it is to be deemed that they were somewhat akin to
them. To be short, though they were freemen, yet as regards the
Dalesmen were they well-nigh their servants; for they were but poor in
goods, and had to lean upon them somewhat. No tillage they had
among those high trees; and of beasts nought save some flocks of goats
and a few asses. Hunters they were, and charcoal-burners, and therein
the deftest of men, and they could shoot well in the bow withal: so they
trucked their charcoal and their smoked venison and their peltries with
the Dalesmen for wheat and wine and weapons and weed; and the
Dalesmen gave them main good pennyworths, as men who had
abundance wherewith to uphold their kinsmen, though they were but
far-away kin. Stout hands had these Woodlanders and true hearts as any;
but they were few-spoken and to those that needed them not somewhat
surly of speech and grim of visage: brown-skinned they were, but
light-haired; well-eyed, with but little red in their cheeks: their women
were not very fair, for they toiled like the men, or more. They were
thought to be wiser than most men in foreseeing things to come. They
were much given to spells, and songs of wizardry, and were very
mindful of the old story-lays, wherein they were far more wordy than in
their daily speech. Much skill had they in runes, and were exceeding
deft in scoring them on treen bowls, and on staves, and door-posts and
roof- beams and standing-beds and such like things. Many a day when
the snow was drifting over their roofs, and hanging heavy on the tree-
boughs, and the wind was roaring through the trees aloft and rattling
about the close thicket, when the boughs were clattering in the wind,
and crashing down beneath the weight of the gathering freezing snow,

when all beasts and men lay close in their lairs, would they sit long
hours about the house-fire with the knife or the gouge in hand, with the
timber twixt their knees and the whetstone beside them, hearkening to
some tale of old times and the days when their banner was abroad in
the world; and they the while wheedling into growth out of the tough
wood knots and blossoms and leaves and the images of beasts and
warriors and women.
They were called nought save the Woodland-Carles in that day, though
time had been when they had borne a nobler name: and their abode was
called Carlstead. Shortly, for all they had and all they had not, for all
they were and all they were not, they were well-beloved by their friends
and feared by their foes.
Now when Wildlake's Way was gotten to Carlstead, there was an end
of it toward the north; though beyond it in a right line the wood was
thinner, because of the hewing of the Carles. But the road itself turned
west at once and went on through the wood, till some four miles further
it first thinned and then ceased altogether, the ground going down-hill
all the way: for this was the lower flank of the first great upheaval
toward the high mountains. But presently, after the wood was ended,
the land broke into swelling downs and winding dales of no great
height or depth, with a