House of the Wolfings: The William Morris Book that Inspired J. R. R. Tolkiena *s The Lord of the Rings (3 page)

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 name, and called it the Dusky, and the
Glassy, and the Mirkwood-water; for the names of it changed with
the generations of man.

There then in the clearing of the wood that
for many years grew greater yearly they drave their beasts to
pasture in the new-made meadows, where year by year the grass grew
sweeter as the sun shone on it and the standing waters went from
it; and now in the year whereof the tale telleth it was a fair and
smiling plain, and no folk might have a better meadow.

But long before that had they learned the
craft of tillage and taken heed to the acres and begun to grow
wheat and rye thereon round about their roofs; the spade came into
their hands, and they bethought them of the plough-share, and the
tillage spread and grew, and there was no lack of bread.

In such wise that Folk had made an island
amidst of the Mirkwood, and established a home there, and upheld it
with manifold toil too long to tell of. And from the beginning this
clearing in the wood they called the Mid-mark: for you shall know
that men might journey up and down the Mirkwood-water, and half a
day’s ride up or down they would come on another clearing or island
in the woods, and these were the Upper-mark and the Nether-mark:
and all these three were inhabited by men of one folk and one
kindred, which was called the Markmen, though of many branches was
that stem of folk, who bore divers signs in battle and at the
council whereby they might be known.

Now in the Mid-mark itself were many Houses
of men; for by that word had they called for generations those who
dwelt together under one token of kinship. The river ran from South
to North, and both on the East side and on the West were there
Houses of the Folk, and their habitations were shouldered up nigh
unto the wood, so that ever betwixt them and the river was there a
space of tillage and pasture.

Tells the tale of one such House, whose
habitations were on the west side of the water, on a gentle slope
of land, so that no flood higher than common might reach them. It
was straight down to the river mostly that the land fell off, and
on its downward-reaching slopes was the tillage, “the Acres,” as
the men of that time always called tilled land; and beyond that was
the meadow going fair and smooth, though with here and there a
rising in it, down to the lips of the stony waste of the winter
river.

Now the name of this House was the Wolfings,
and they bore a Wolf on their banners, and their warriors were
marked on the breast with the image of the Wolf, that they might be
known for what they were if they fell in battle, and were
stripped.

The house, that is to say the Roof, of the
Wolfings of the Mid-mark stood on the topmost of the slope
aforesaid with its back to the wild-wood and its face to the acres
and the water. But you must know that in those days the men of one
branch of kindred dwelt under one roof together, and had therein
their place and dignity; nor were there many degrees amongst them
as hath befallen afterwards, but all they of one blood were
brethren and of equal dignity. Howbeit they had servants or
thralls, men taken in battle, men of alien blood, though true it is
that from time to time were some of such men taken into the House,
and hailed as brethren of the blood.

Also (to make an end at once of these
matters of kinship and affinity) the men of one House might not wed
the women of their own House: to the Wolfing men all Wolfing women
were as sisters: they must needs wed with the Hartings or the
Elkings or the Bearings, or other such Houses of the Mark as were
not so close akin to the blood of the Wolf; and this was a law that
none dreamed of breaking. Thus then dwelt this Folk and such was
their Custom.

As to the Roof of the Wolfings, it was a
great hall and goodly, after the fashion of their folk and their
day; not built of stone and lime, but framed of the goodliest trees
of the wild-wood squared with the adze, and betwixt the framing
filled with clay wattled with reeds. Long was that house, and at
one end anigh the gable was the Man’s-door, not so high that a man
might stand on the threshold and his helmcrest clear the lintel;
for such was the custom, that a tall man must bow himself as he
came into the hall; which custom maybe was a memory of the days of
onslaught when the foemen were mostly wont to beset the hall;
whereas in the days whereof the tale tells they drew out into the
fields and fought unfenced; unless at whiles when the odds were
over great, and then they drew their wains about them and were
fenced by the Wain-burg. At least it was from no niggardry that the
door was made thus low, as might be seen by the fair and manifold
carving of knots and dragons that was wrought above the lintel of
the door for some three foot’s space. But a like door was there
anigh the other gable-end, whereby the women entered, and it was
called the Woman’s-door.

Near to the house on all sides except toward
the wood were there many bowers and cots round about the penfolds
and the byres: and these were booths for the stowage of wares, and
for crafts and smithying that were unhandy to do in the house; and
withal they were the dwelling-places of the thralls. And the lads
and young men often abode there many days and were cherished there
of the thralls that loved them, since at whiles they shunned the
Great Roof that they might be the freer to come and go at their
pleasure, and deal as they would. Thus was there a clustering on
the slopes and bents betwixt the acres of the Wolfings and the
wild-wood wherein dwelt the wolves.

As to the house within, two rows of pillars
went down it endlong, fashioned of the mightiest trees that might
be found, and each one fairly wrought with base and chapiter, and
wreaths and knots, and fighting men and dragons; so that it was
like a church of later days that has a nave and aisles: windows
there were above the aisles, and a passage underneath the said
windows in their roofs. In the aisles were the sleeping-places of
the Folk, and down the nave under the crown of the roof were three
hearths for the fires, and above each hearth a luffer or
smoke-bearer to draw the smoke up when the fires were lighted.
Forsooth on a bright winter afternoon it was strange to see the
three columns of smoke going wavering up to the dimness of the
mighty roof, and one maybe smitten athwart by the sunbeams. As for
the timber of the roof itself and its framing, so exceeding great
and high it was, that the tale tells how that none might see the
fashion of it from the hall-floor unless he were to raise aloft a
blazing faggot on a long pole: since no lack of timber was there
among the men of the Mark.

At the end of the hall anigh the Man’s-door
was the dais, and a table thereon set thwartwise of the hall; and
in front of the dais was the noblest and greatest of the hearths;
(but of the others one was in the very midmost, and another in the
Woman’s Chamber) and round about the dais, along the gable-wall,
and hung from pillar to pillar were woven cloths pictured with
images of ancient tales and the deeds of the Wolfings, and the
deeds of the Gods from whence they came. And this was the fairest
place of all the house and the best-beloved of the Folk, and
especially of the older and the mightier men: and there were tales
told, and songs sung, especially if they were new: and thereto also
were messengers brought if any tidings were abroad: there also
would the elders talk together about matters concerning the House
or the Mid-mark or the whole Folk of the Markmen.

Yet you must not think that their solemn
councils were held there, the folk-motes whereat it must be
determined what to do and what to forbear doing; for according as
such councils, (which they called Things) were of the House or of
the Mid-mark or of the whole Folk, were they held each at the due
Thing-steads in the Wood aloof from either acre or meadow, (as was
the custom of our forefathers for long after) and at such Things
would all the men of the House or the Mid-mark or the Folk be
present man by man. And in each of these steads was there a
Doomring wherein Doom was given by the neighbours chosen, (whom now
we call the Jury) in matters between man and man; and no such doom
of neighbours was given, and no such voice of the Folk proclaimed
in any house or under any roof, nor even as aforesaid on the tilled
acres or the depastured meadows. This was the custom of our
forefathers, in memory, belike, of the days when as yet there was
neither house nor tillage, nor flocks and herds, but the Earth’s
face only and what freely grew thereon.

But over the dais there hung by chains and
pulleys fastened to a tie-beam of the roof high aloft a wondrous
lamp fashioned of glass; yet of no such glass as the folk made then
and there, but of a fair and clear green like an emerald, and all
done with figures and knots in gold, and strange beasts, and a
warrior slaying a dragon, and the sun rising on the earth: nor did
any tale tell whence this lamp came, but it was held as an ancient
and holy thing by all the Markmen, and the kindred of the Wolf had
it in charge to keep a light burning in it night and day for ever;
and they appointed a maiden of their own kindred to that office;
which damsel must needs be unwedded, since no wedded woman dwelling
under that roof could be a Wolfing woman, but would needs be of the
houses wherein the Wolfings wedded.

This lamp which burned ever was called the
Hall-Sun, and the woman who had charge of it, and who was the
fairest that might be found was called after it the Hall-Sun
also.

At the other end of the hall was the Woman’s
Chamber, and therein were the looms and other gear for the carding
and spinning of wool and the weaving of cloth.

Such was the Roof under which dwelt the
kindred of the Wolfings; and the other kindreds of the Mid-mark had
roofs like to it; and of these the chiefest were the Elkings, the
Vallings, the Alftings, the Beamings, the Galtings, and the
Bearings; who bore on their banners the Elk, the Falcon, the Swan,
the Tree, the Boar, and the Bear. But other lesser and newer
kindreds there were than these: as for the Hartings above named,
they were a kindred of the Upper-mark.

Chapter 2

The Flitting of the War-Arrow

Tells the tale that it was an evening of
summer, when the wheat was in the ear, but yet green; and the
neat-herds were done driving the milch-kine to the byre, and the
horseherds and the shepherds had made the night-shift, and the
out-goers were riding two by two and one by one through the lanes
between the wheat and the rye towards the meadow. Round the cots of
the thralls were gathered knots of men and women both thralls and
freemen, some talking together, some hearkening a song or a tale,
some singing and some dancing together; and the children gambolling
about from group to group with their shrill and tuneless voices,
like young throstles who have not yet learned the song of their
race. With these were mingled dogs, dun of colour, long of limb,
sharp-nosed, gaunt and great; they took little heed of the children
as they pulled them about in their play, but lay down, or loitered
about, as though they had forgotten the chase and the
wild-wood.

Merry was the folk with that fair tide, and
the promise of the harvest, and the joy of life, and there was no
weapon among them so close to the houses, save here and there the
boar-spear of some herdman or herd-woman late come from the
meadow.

Tall and for the most part comely were both
men and women; the most of them light-haired and grey-eyed, with
cheek-bones somewhat high; white of skin but for the sun’s burning,
and the wind’s parching, and whereas they were tanned of a very
ruddy and cheerful hue. But the thralls were some of them of a
shorter and darker breed, black-haired also and dark-eyed, lighter
of limb; sometimes better knit, but sometimes crookeder of leg and
knottier of arm. But some also were of build and hue not much
unlike to the freemen; and these doubtless came of some other Folk
of the Goths which had given way in battle before the Men of the
Mark, either they or their fathers.