House of the Wolfings: The William Morris Book that Inspired J. R. R. Tolkiena *s The Lord of the Rings (7 page)

In their hearts they all wondered what the
Hall-Sun’s words might signify; for she had told them nought about
the battles to be, saving that some should come back to the
Mid-mark; whereas aforetime somewhat would she foretell to them
concerning the fortune of the fight, and now had she said to them
nothing but what their own hearts told them. Nevertheless they bore
their crests high as they followed the Wolf down into the meadow,
where all was now ready for departure. There they arrayed
themselves and went down to the lip of Mirkwood-water; and such was
their array that the banner went first, save that a band of fully
armed men went before it; and behind it and about were the others
as well arrayed as they. Then went the wains that bore their
munition, with armed carles of the thrall-folk about them, who were
ever the guard of the wains, and should never leave them night or
day; and lastly went the great band of the warriors and the rest of
the thralls with them.

As to their war-gear, all the freemen had
helms of some kind, but not all of iron or steel; for some bore
helms fashioned of horse-hide and bull-hide covered over with the
similitude of a Wolf’s muzzle; nor were these ill-defence against a
sword-stroke. Shields they all had, and all these had the image of
the Wolf marked on them, but for many their thralls bore them on
the journey. As to their body-armour some carried long byrnies of
ring-mail, some coats of leather covered with splinters of horn
laid like the shingles of a roof, and some skin-coats only: whereof
indeed there were some of which tales went that they were better
than the smith’s hammer-work, because they had had spells sung over
them to keep out steel or iron.

But for their weapons, they bore spears with
shafts not very long, some eight feet of our measure; and axes
heavy and long-shafted; and bills with great and broad heads; and
some few, but not many of the kindred were bowmen, and every
freeman was girt with a sword; but of the swords some were long and
two-edged, some short and heavy, cutting on one edge, and these
were of the kind which they and our forefathers long after called
‘sax.’ Thus were the freemen arrayed.

But for the thralls, there were many bows
among them, especially among those who were of blood alien from the
Goths; the others bore short spears, and feathered broad arrows,
and clubs bound with iron, and knives and axes, but not every man
of them had a sword. Few iron helms they had and no ringed byrnies,
but most had a buckler at their backs with no sign or symbol on
it.

Thus then set forth the fighting men of the
House of the Wolf toward the Thing-stead of the Upper-mark where
the hosting was to be, and by then they were moving up along the
side of Mirkwood-water it was somewhat past high-noon.

But the stay-at-home people who had come
down with them to the meadow lingered long in that place; and much
foreboding there was among them of evil to come; and of the old
folk, some remembered tales of the past days of the Markmen, and
how they had come from the ends of the earth, and the mountains
where none dwell now but the Gods of their kindreds; and many of
these tales told of their woes and their wars as they went from
river to river and from wild-wood to wild-wood before they had
established their Houses in the Mark, and fallen to dwelling there
season by season and year by year whether the days were good or
ill. And it fell into their hearts that now at last mayhappen was
their abiding wearing out to an end, and that the day should soon
be when they should have to bear the Hall-Sun through the
wild-wood, and seek a new dwelling-place afar from the troubling of
these newly arisen Welsh foemen.

And so those of them who could not rid
themselves of this foreboding were somewhat heavier of heart than
their wont was when the House went to the War. For long had they
abided there in the Mark, and the life was sweet to them which they
knew, and the life which they knew not was bitter to them: and
Mirkwood-water was become as a God to them no less than to their
fathers of old time; nor lesser was the mead where fed the horses
that they loved and the kine that they had reared, and the sheep
that they guarded from the Wolf of the Wild-wood: and they
worshipped the kind acres which they themselves and their fathers
had made fruitful, wedding them to the seasons of seed-time and
harvest, that the birth that came from them might become a part of
the kindred of the Wolf, and the joy and might of past springs and
summers might run in the blood of the Wolfing children. And a dear
God indeed to them was the Roof of the Kindred, that their fathers
had built and that they yet warded against the fire and the
lightening and the wind and the snow, and the passing of the days
that devour and the years that heap the dust over the work of men.
They thought of how it had stood, and seen so many generations of
men come and go; how often it had welcomed the new-born babe, and
given farewell to the old man: how many secrets of the past it
knew; how many tales which men of the present had forgotten, but
which yet mayhap men of times to come should learn of it; for to
them yet living it had spoken time and again, and had told them
what their fathers had not told them, and it held the memories of
the generations and the very life of the Wolfings and their hopes
for the days to be.

Thus these poor people thought of the Gods
whom they worshipped, and the friends whom they loved, and could
not choose but be heavy-hearted when they thought that the
wild-wood was awaiting them to swallow all up, and take away from
them their Gods and their friends and the mirth of their life, and
burden them with hunger and thirst and weariness, that their
children might begin once more to build the House and establish the
dwelling, and call new places by old names, and worship new Gods
with the ancient worship.

Such imaginations of trouble then were in
the hearts of the stay-at-homes of the Wolfings; the tale tells not
indeed that all had such forebodings, but chiefly the old folk who
were nursing the end of their life-days amidst the cherishing
Kindred of the House.

But now they were beginning to turn them
back again to the habitations, and a thin stream was flowing
through the acres, when they heard a confused sound drawing near
blended of horns and the lowing of beasts and the shouting of men;
and they looked and saw a throng of brightly clad men coming up
stream alongside of Mirkwood-water; and they were not afraid, for
they knew that it must be some other company of the Markmen
journeying to the hosting of the Folk: and presently they saw that
it was the House of the Beamings following their banner on the way
to the Thing-stead. But when the new-comers saw the throng out in
the meads, some of their young men pricked on their horses and
galloped on past the women and old men, to whom they threw a
greeting, as they ran past to catch up with the bands of the
Wolfings; for between the two houses was there affinity, and much
good liking lay between them; and the stay-at-homes, many of them,
lingered yet till the main body of the Beamings came with their
banner: and their array was much like to that of the Wolfings, but
gayer; for whereas it pleased the latter to darken all their
wargear to the colour of the grey Wolf, the Beamings polished all
their gear as bright as might be, and their raiment also was mostly
bright green of hue and much beflowered; and the sign on their
banner was a green leafy tree, and the wain was drawn by great
white bulls.

So when their company drew anear to the
throng of the stay-at-homes they went to meet and greet each other,
and tell tidings to each other; but their banner held steadily
onward amidst their converse, and in a little while they followed
it, for the way was long to the Thing-stead of the Upper-mark.

So passed away the fighting men by the side
of Mirkwood-water, and the throng of the stay-at-homes melted
slowly from the meadow and trickled along through the acres to the
habitations of the Wolfings, and there they fell to doing whatso of
work or play came to their hands.

Chapter 5

Concerning the Hall-Sun

When the warriors and the others had gone
down to the mead, the Hall-Sun was left standing on the Hill of
Speech, and she stood there till she saw the host in due array
going on its ways dark and bright and beautiful; then she made as
if to turn aback to the Great Roof; but all at once it seemed to
her as if something held her back, as if her will to move had
departed from her, and that she could not put one foot before the
other. So she lingered on the Hill, and the quenched candle fell
from her hand, and presently she sank adown on the grass and sat
there with the face of one thinking intently. Yet was it with her
that a thousand thoughts were in her mind at once and no one of
them uppermost, and images of what had been and what then was
flickered about in her brain, and betwixt them were engendered
images of things to be, but unstable and not to be trowed in. So
sat the Hall-Sun on the Hill of Speech lost in a dream of the day,
whose stories were as little clear as those of a night-dream.

But as she sat musing thus, came to her a
woman exceeding old to look on, whom she knew not as one of the
kindred or a thrall; and this carline greeted her by the name of
Hall-Sun and said:

Hail, Hall-Sun of the Markmen! how fares it
now with thee

When the whelps of the Woodbeast wander with
the Leafage of the Tree

All up the Mirkwood-water to seek what they
shall find,

The oak-boles of the battle and the war-wood
stark and blind?

Then answered the maiden:

It fares with me, O mother, that my soul
would fain go forth

To behold the ways of the battle, and the
praise of the warriors’ worth.

But yet is it held entangled in a maze of
many a thing,

As the low-grown bramble holdeth the
brake-shoots of the Spring.

I think of the thing that hath been, but no
shape is in my thought;

I think of the day that passeth, and its
story comes to nought.

I think of the days that shall be, nor shape
I any tale.

I will hearken thee, O mother, if hearkening
may avail.

The Carline gazed at her with dark eyes that
shone brightly from amidst her brown wrinkled face: then she sat
herself down beside her and spake:

From a far folk have I wandered and I come
of an alien blood,

But I know all tales of the Wolfings and
their evil and their good;

And when I heard of thy fairness, thereof I
heard it said,

That for thee should be never a bridal nor a
place in the warrior’s bed.

The maiden neither reddened nor paled, but
looking with calm steady eyes into the Carline’s face she
answered:

Yea true it is, I am wedded to the mighty
ones of old,

And the fathers of the Wolfings ere the days
of field and fold.

Then a smile came into the eyes of the old
woman and she said.

How glad shall be thy mother of thy worship
and thy worth,

And the father that begat thee if yet they
dwell on earth!

But the Hall-Sun answered in the same steady
manner as before:

None knoweth who is my mother, nor my very
father’s name;

But when to the House of the Wolfings a
wild-wood waif I came,

They gave me a foster-mother an ancient dame
and good,

And a glorious foster-father the best of all
the blood.

Spake the Carline.

Yea, I have heard the story, but scarce
therein might I trow

That thou with all thy beauty wert born
’neath the oaken bough,

And hast crawled a naked baby o’er the
rain-drenched autumn-grass;

Wilt thou tell the wandering woman what wise
it cometh to pass

That thou art the Mid-mark’s Hall-Sun, and
the sign of the Wolfings’ gain?

Thou shalt pleasure me much by the telling,
and there of shalt thou be fain.

Then answered the Hall-Sun.

Yea; thus much I remember for the first of
my memories;

That I lay on the grass in the morning and
above were the boughs of the trees.

But nought naked was I as the wood-whelp,
but clad in linen white,

And adown the glades of the oakwood the
morning sun lay bright.

Then a hind came out of the thicket and
stood on the sunlit glade,

And turned her head toward the oak tree and
a step on toward me made.

Then stopped, and bounded aback, and away as
if in fear,

That I saw her no more; then I wondered,
though sitting close anear

Was a she-wolf great and grisly. But with
her was I wont to play,

And pull her ears, and belabour her rugged
sides and grey,

And hold her jaws together, while she
whimpered, slobbering

For the love of my love; and nowise I deemed
her a fearsome thing.

There she sat as though she were watching,
and o’er head a blue-winged jay

Shrieked out from the topmost oak-twigs, and
a squirrel ran his way

Two tree-trunks off. But the she-wolf arose
up suddenly

And growled with her neck-fell bristling, as
if danger drew anigh;

And therewith I heard a footstep, for nice
was my ear to catch

All the noises of the wild-wood; so there
did we sit at watch

While the sound of feet grew nigher: then I
clapped hand on hand

And crowed for joy and gladness, for there
out in the sun did stand

A man, a glorious creature with a gleaming
helm on his head,

And gold rings on his arms, in raiment
gold-broidered crimson-red.

Straightway he strode up toward us nor
heeded the wolf of the wood

But sang as he went in the oak-glade, as a
man whose thought is good,

And nought she heeded the warrior, but tame
as a sheep was grown,