The Roots of the Mountains | Page 6

there of the Northern cliffs, and which faced the South and the
Sun's burning, were rows of goodly vines, whereof the folk made them
enough and to spare of strong wine both white and red.
As to their beasts; swine they had a many, but not many sheep, since
herein they trusted to their trucking with their friends the Shepherds;
they had horses, and yet but a few, for they were stout in going afoot;
and, had they a journey to make with women big with babes, or with
children or outworn elders, they would yoke their oxen to their wains,
and go fair and softly whither they would. But the said oxen and all
their neat were exceeding big and fair, far other than the little beasts of
the Shepherd-Folk; they were either dun of colour, or white with black
horns (and those very great) and black tail-tufts and ear-tips. Asses they
had, and mules for the paths of the mountains to the east; geese and
hens enough, and dogs not a few, great hounds stronger than wolves,
sharp-nosed, long-jawed, dun of colour, shag-haired.
As to their wares; they were very deft weavers of wool and flax, and
made a shift to dye the thrums in fair colours; since both woad and
madder came to them good cheap by means of the merchants of the
plain country, and of greening weeds was abundance at hand. Good
smiths they were in all the metals: they washed somewhat of gold out
of the sands of the Weltering Water, and copper and tin they fetched
from the rocks of the eastern mountains; but of silver they saw little,
and iron they must buy of the merchants of the plain, who came to
them twice in the year, to wit in the spring and the late autumn just
before the snows. Their wares they bought with wool spun and in the

fleece, and fine cloth, and skins of wine and young neat both steers and
heifers, and wrought copper bowls, and gold and copper by weight, for
they had no stamped money. And they guested these merchants well,
for they loved them, because of the tales they told them of the Plain and
its cities, and the manslayings therein, and the fall of Kings and Dukes,
and the uprising of Captains.
Thus then lived this folk in much plenty and ease of life, though not
delicately nor desiring things out of measure. They wrought with their
hands and wearied themselves; and they rested from their toil and
feasted and were merry: to-morrow was not a burden to them, nor
yesterday a thing which they would fain forget: life shamed them not,
nor did death make them afraid.
As for the Dale wherein they dwelt, it was indeed most fair and lovely,
and they deemed it the Blessing of the Earth, and they trod its flowery
grass beside its rippled streams amidst its green tree- boughs proudly
and joyfully with goodly bodies and merry hearts.
CHAPTER II.
OF FACE-OF-GOD AND HIS KINDRED

Tells the tale, that on an evening of late autumn when the weather was
fair, calm, and sunny, there came a man out of the wood hard by the
Mote-stead aforesaid, who sat him down at the roots of the
Speech-mound, casting down before him a roe-buck which he had just
slain in the wood. He was a young man of three and twenty summers;
he was so clad that he had on him a sheep-brown kirtle and leggings of
like stuff bound about with white leather thongs; he bore a short- sword
in his girdle and a little axe withal; the sword with fair wrought gilded
hilts and a dew-shoe of like fashion to its sheath. He had his quiver at
his back and bare in his hand his bow unstrung. He was tall and strong,
very fair of fashion both of limbs and face, white-skinned, but for the
sun's tanning, and ruddy-cheeked: his beard was little and fine, his hair
yellow and curling, cut somewhat close, but for its length so plenteous,

and so thick, that none could fail to note it. He had no hat nor hood
upon his head, nought but a fillet of golden beads.
As he sat down he glanced at the dale below him with a well-pleased
look, and then cast his eyes down to the grass at his feet, as though to
hold a little longer all unchanged the image of the fair place he had just
seen. The sun was low in the heavens, and his slant beams fell yellow
all up the dale, gilding the chestnut groves grown dusk and grey with
autumn, and the black masses of the elm-boughs, and gleaming back
here and there from the pools of the Weltering Water.