The Roots of the Mountains | Page 5

quite new, but of these there were not many: they were all
built fairly of stone and lime, with much fair and curious carved work
of knots and beasts and men round about the doors; or whiles a wale of
such-like work all along the house-front. For as deft as were the
Woodlanders with knife and gouge on the oaken beams, even so deft
were the Dalesmen with mallet and chisel on the face of the hewn stone;
and this was a great pastime about the Thorp. Within these houses had
but a hall and solar, with shut-beds out from the hall on one side or two,
with whatso of kitchen and buttery and out-bower men deemed handy.
Many men dwelt in each house, either kinsfolk, or such as were joined
to the kindred.
Near to the gate of Burgstead in that street aforesaid and facing east
was the biggest house of the Thorp; it was one of the two abovesaid
which were older than any other. Its door-posts and the lintel of the
door were carved with knots and twining stems fairer than other houses
of that stead; and on the wall beside the door carved over many stones
was an image wrought in the likeness of a man with a wide face, which
was terrible to behold, although it smiled: he bore a bent bow in his
hand with an arrow fitted to its string, and about the head of him was a

ring of rays like the beams of the sun, and at his feet was a dragon,
which had crept, as it were, from amidst of the blossomed knots of the
door-post wherewith the tail of him was yet entwined. And this head
with the ring of rays about it was wrought into the adornment of that
house, both within and without, in many other places, but on never
another house of the Dale; and it was called the House of the Face.
Thereof hath the tale much to tell hereafter, but as now it goeth on to
tell of the ways of life of the Dalesmen.
In Burgstead was no Mote-hall or Town-house or Church, such as we
wot of in these days; and their market-place was wheresoever any
might choose to pitch a booth: but for the most part this was done in the
wide street betwixt the gate and the bridge. As to a meeting-place, were
there any small matters between man and man, these would the
Alderman or one of the Wardens deal with, sitting in Court with the
neighbours on the wide space just outside the Gate: but if it were to do
with greater matters, such as great manslayings and blood- wites, or the
making of war or ending of it, or the choosing of the Alderman and the
Wardens, such matters must be put off to the Folk- mote, which could
but be held in the place aforesaid where was the Doom-ring and the
Altar of the Gods; and at that Folk-mote both the Shepherd-Folk and
the Woodland-Carles foregathered with the Dalesmen, and duly said
their say. There also they held their great casts and made offerings to
the Gods for the Fruitfulness of the Year, the ingathering of the
increase, and in Memory of their Forefathers. Natheless at Yule-tide
also they feasted from house to house to be glad with the rest of
Midwinter, and many a cup drank at those feasts to the memory of the
fathers, and the days when the world was wider to them, and their
banners fared far afield.
But besides these dwellings of men in the field between the wall and
the water, there were homesteads up and down the Dale whereso men
found it easy and pleasant to dwell: their halls were built of much the
same fashion as those within the Thorp; but many had a high garth-wall
cast about them, so that they might make a stout defence in their own
houses if war came into the Dale.

As to their work afield; in many places the Dale was fair with growth
of trees, and especially were there long groves of sweet chestnut
standing on the grass, of the fruit whereof the folk had much gain. Also
on the south side nigh to the western end was a wood or two of
yew-trees very great and old, whence they gat them bow-staves, for the
Dalesmen also shot well in the bow. Much wheat and rye they raised in
the Dale, and especially at the nether end thereof. Apples and pears and
cherries and plums they had in plenty; of which trees, some grew about
the borders of the acres, some in the gardens of the Thorp and the
homesteads. On the slopes that had grown from the breaking down here
and