The Roots of the Mountains. William Morris

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СКАЧАТЬ of gold in it, or maybe a spear in the stranger’s band on the stricken field, or a bow on the wall of an alien city. This is a craft which thou mayst well learn, since thou shalt be a chieftain; a craft good to learn, however grievous it be in the learning. And I myself have been there; for in my youth I desired sore to look on the world beyond the mountains; so I went, and I filled my belly with the fruit of my own desires, and a bitter meat was that; but now that it has passed through me, and I yet alive, belike I am more of a grown man for having endured its gripe. Even so may it well be with thee, son; so go if thou wilt; and thou shalt go with my blessing, and with gold and wares and wain and spearmen.’

      ‘Nay,’ said Face-of-god, ‘I thank thee, for it is well offered; but I will not go, for I have no lust for the Plain and its Cities; I love the Dale well, and all that is round about it; therein will I live and die.’

      Therewith he fell a-musing; and the Bride looked at him anxiously, but spake not. Sooth to say her heart was sinking, as though she foreboded some new thing, which should thrust itself into their merry life.

      But the old man Stone-face took up the word and said:

      ‘Son Gold-mane, it behoveth me to speak, since belike I know the wild-wood better than most, and have done for these three-score and ten years; to my cost. Now I perceive that thou longest for the wood and the innermost of it; and wot ye what? This longing will at whiles entangle the sons of our chieftains, though this Alderman that now is hath been free therefrom, which is well for him. For, time was this longing came over me, and I went whither it led me: overlong it were to tell of all that befell me because of it, and how my heart bled thereby. So sorry were the tidings that came of it, that now meseemeth my heart should be of stone and not my face, had it not been for the love wherewith I have loved the sons of the kindred. Therefore, son, it were not ill if ye went west away with the merchants this winter, and learned the dealings of the cities, and brought us back tales thereof.’

      But Gold-mane cried out somewhat angrily, ‘I tell thee, foster-father, that I have no mind for the cities and their men and their fools and their whores and their runagates. But as for the wood and its wonders, I have done with it, save for hunting there along with others of the Folk. So let thy mind be at ease; and for the rest, I will do what the Alderman commandeth, and whatso my father craveth of me.’

      ‘And that is well, son,’ said Stone-face, ‘if what ye say come to pass, as sore I misdoubt me it will not. But well it were, well it were! For such things are in the wood, yea and before ye come to its innermost, as may well try the stoutest heart. Therein are Kobbolds, and Wights that love not men, things unto whom the grief of men is as the sound of the fiddle-bow unto us. And there abide the ghosts of those that may not rest; and there wander the dwarfs and the mountain-dwellers, the dealers in marvels, the givers of gifts that destroy Houses; the forgers of the curse that clingeth and the murder that flitteth to and fro. There moreover are the lairs of Wights in the shapes of women, that draw a young man’s heart out of his body, and fill up the empty place with desire never to be satisfied, that they may mock him therewith and waste his manhood and destroy him. Nor say I much of the strong-thieves that dwell there, since thou art a valiant sword; or of them who have been made Wolves of the Holy Places; or of the Murder-Carles, the remnants and off-scourings of wicked and wretched Folks—men who think as much of the life of a man as of the life of a fly. Yet happiest is the man whom they shall tear in pieces, than he who shall live burdened by the curse of the Foes of the Gods.’

      The housemaster looked on his son as the old carle spake, and a cloud gathered on his face a while; and when Stone-face had made an end he spake:

      ‘This is long and evil talk for the end of a merry day, O fosterer! Wilt thou not drink a draught, O Redesman, and then stand up and set thy fiddle-bow a-dancing, and cause it draw some fair words after it? For my cousin’s face hath grown sadder than a young maid’s should be, and my son’s eyes gleam with thoughts that are far away from us and abroad in the wild-wood seeking marvels.’

      Then arose a man of middle-age from the top of the endlong bench on the east side of the hall: a man tall, thin and scant-haired, with a nose like an eagle’s neb: he reached out his hand for the bowl, and when they had given to him he handled it, and raised it aloft and cried:

      ‘Here I drink a double health to Face-of-god and the Bride, and the love that lieth between them, and the love betwixt them twain and us.’

      He drank therewith, and the wine went up and down the hall, and all men drank, both carles and queens, with shouting and great joy. Then Redesman put down the cup (for it had come into his hands again), and reached his hand to the wall behind him, and took down his fiddle hanging there in its case, and drew it out and fell to tuning it, while the hall grew silent to hearken: then he handled the bow and laid it on the strings till they wailed and chuckled sweetly, and when the song was well awake and stirring briskly, then he lifted up his voice and sang:

      The Minstrel saith:

      ‘O why on this morning, ye maids, are ye tripping

       Aloof from the meadows yet fresh with the dew,

       Where under the west wind the river is lipping

       The fragrance of mint, the white blooms and the blue?

      For rough is the Portway where panting ye wander;

       On your feet and your gown-hems the dust lieth dun;

       Come trip through the grass and the meadow-sweet yonder,

       And forget neath the willows the sword of the sun.

      The Maidens answer:

      Though fair are the moon-daisies down by the river,

       And soft is the grass and the white clover sweet;

       Though twixt us and the rock-wall the hot glare doth quiver,

       And the dust of the wheel-way is dun on our feet;

      Yet here on the way shall we walk on this morning

       Though the sun burneth here, and sweet, cool is the mead;

       For here when in old days the Burg gave its warning,

       Stood stark under weapons the doughty of deed.

      Here came on the aliens their proud words a-crying,

       And here on our threshold they stumbled and fell;

       Here silent at even the steel-clad were lying,

       And here were our mothers the story to tell.

      Here then on the morn of the eve of the wedding

       We pray to the Mighty that we too may bear

       Such war-walls for warding of orchard and steading,

       That the new days be merry as old days were dear.’

      Therewith he made an end, and shouts and glad cries arose all about the hall; and an old man arose and cried: ‘A cup to the memory of the Mighty of the Day of the Warding of the Ways.’ For you must know this song told of a custom of the Folk, held in memory of a time of bygone battle, wherein they had overthrown a great host of aliens on the Portway betwixt the river and the cliffs, two furlongs from the gate of Burgstead. So now two weeks before Midsummer those maidens who were presently to be wedded went early in the morning to that place clad in very fair raiment, swords girt to their sides and spears in their hands, and СКАЧАТЬ