The Roots of the Mountains / Wherein Is Told Somewhat of the Lives of the Men of Burgdale, Their Friends, Their Neighbours, Their Foemen, and Their Fellows in Arms
Transcribed from the 1896 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
BY WILLIAM MORRIS
Whiles carried o’er the iron road, We hurry by some fair abode; The garden bright amidst the hay, The yellow wain upon the way, The dining men, the wind that sweeps Light locks from off the sun-sweet heaps— The gable grey, the hoary roof, Here now—and now so far aloof. How sorely then we long to stay And midst its sweetness wear the day, And ’neath its changing shadows sit, And feel ourselves a part of it. Such rest, such stay, I strove to win With these same leaves that lie herein.
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. LONDON, NEW YORK, AND BOMBAY MDCCCXCVI
First Edition printed November , 1889.
250 copies were printed on Large Paper .
Second Edition , February , 1893.
Once upon a time amidst the mountains and hills and falling streams of a fair land there was a town or thorp in a certain valley. This was well-nigh encompassed by a wall of sheer cliffs; toward the East and the great mountains they drew together till they went near to meet, and left but a narrow path on either side of a stony stream that came rattling down into the Dale: toward the river at that end the hills lowered somewhat, though they still ended in sheer rocks; but up from it, and more especially on the north side, they swelled into great shoulders of land, then dipped a little, and rose again into the sides of huge fells clad with pine-woods, and cleft here and there by deep ghylls: thence again they rose higher and steeper, and ever higher till they drew dark and naked out of the woods to meet the snow-fields and ice-rivers of the high mountains. But that was far away from the pass by the little river into the valley; and the said river was no drain from the snow-fields white and thick with the grinding of the ice, but clear and bright were its waters that came from wells amidst the bare rocky heaths.
The upper end of the valley, where it first began to open out from the pass, was rugged and broken by rocks and ridges of water-borne stones, but presently it smoothed itself into mere grassy swellings and knolls, and at last into a fair and fertile plain swelling up into a green wave, as it were, against the rock-wall which encompassed it on all sides save where the river came gushing out of the strait pass at the east end, and where at the west end it poured itself out of the Dale toward the lowlands and the plain of the great river.
William Morris
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CHAPTER III. THEY TALK OF DIVERS MATTERS IN THE HALL.
CHAPTER IV. FACE-OF-GOD FARETH TO THE WOOD AGAIN.
CHAPTER V. FACE-OF-GOD FALLS IN WITH MENFOLK ON THE MOUNTAIN.
CHAPTER VI. OF FACE-OF-GOD AND THOSE MOUNTAIN-DWELLERS.
CHAPTER VIII. FACE-OF-GOD COMETH HOME AGAIN TO BURGSTEAD.
CHAPTER IX. THOSE BRETHREN FARE TO THE YEWWOOD WITH THE BRIDE.
CHAPTER X. NEW TIDINGS IN THE DALE.
CHAPTER XI. MEN MAKE OATH AT BURGSTEAD ON THE HOLY BOAR.
CHAPTER XII. STONE-FACE TELLETH CONCERNING THE WOOD-WIGHTS.
CHAPTER XIII. THEY FARE TO THE HUNTING OF THE ELK.
CHAPTER XIV. CONCERNING FACE-OF-GOD AND THE MOUNTAIN.
CHAPTER XV. MURDER AMONGST THE FOLK OF THE WOODLANDERS.
CHAPTER XVI. THE BRIDE SPEAKETH WITH FACE-OF-GOD.
CHAPTER XVII. THE TOKEN COMETH FROM THE MOUNTAIN.
CHAPTER XIX. THE FAIR WOMAN TELLETH FACE-OF-GOD OF HER KINDRED.
CHAPTER XX. THOSE TWO TOGETHER HOLD THE RING OF THE EARTH-GOD.
CHAPTER XXII. FACE-OF-GOD COMETH HOME TO BURGSTEAD.
CHAPTER XXIV. FACE-OF-GOD GIVETH THAT TOKEN TO THE BRIDE.
CHAPTER XXV. OF THE GATE-THING AT BURGSTEAD.
CHAPTER XXVI. THE ENDING OF THE GATE-THING.
CHAPTER XXVIII. THE MEN OF BURGDALE MEET THE RUNAWAYS.
CHAPTER XXIX. THEY BRING THE RUNAWAYS TO BURGSTEAD.
CHAPTER XXX. HALL-FACE GOETH TOWARD ROSE-DALE.
CHAPTER XXXII. THE MEN OF SHADOWY VALE COME TO THE SPRING MARKET AT BURGSTEAD.
CHAPTER XXXIII. THE ALDERMAN GIVES GIFTS TO THEM OF SHADOWY VALE.
CHAPTER XXXIV. THE CHIEFTAINS TAKE COUNSEL IN THE HALL OF THE FACE.
CHAPTER XXXV. FACE-OF-GOD TALKETH WITH THE SUN-BEAM.
CHAPTER XXXVI. FOLK-MIGHT SPEAKETH WITH THE BRIDE.
CHAPTER XXXVII. OF THE FOLK-MOTE OF THE DALESMEN, THE SHEPHERD-FOLK, AND THE WOODLAND CARLES: THE BANNER OF THE WOLF DISPLAYED.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. OF THE GREAT FOLK-MOTE: ATONEMENTS GIVEN, AND MEN MADE SACKLESS.
CHAPTER XL. OF THE HOSTING IN SHADOWY VALE.
CHAPTER XLI. THE HOST DEPARTETH FROM SHADOWY VALE: THE FIRST DAY’S JOURNEY.
CHAPTER XLII. THE HOST COMETH TO THE EDGES OF SILVER-DALE.
CHAPTER XLIII. FACE-OF-GOD LOOKETH ON SILVER-DALE: THE BOWMEN’S BATTLE.
CHAPTER XLIV. OF THE ONSLAUGHT OF THE MEN OF THE STEER, THE BRIDGE, AND THE BULL.
CHAPTER XLV. OF FACE-OF-GOD’S ONSLAUGHT.
CHAPTER XLVI. MEN MEET IN THE MARKET OF SILVER-STEAD.
CHAPTER XLVII. THE KINDREDS WIN THE MOTE-HOUSE.
CHAPTER XLVIII. MEN SING IN THE MOTE-HOUSE.
CHAPTER L. FOLK-MIGHT SEETH THE BRIDE AND SPEAKETH WITH HER.
CHAPTER LI. THE DEAD BORNE TO BALE: THE MOTE-HOUSE RE-HALLOWED.
CHAPTER LII. OF THE NEW BEGINNING OF GOOD DAYS IN SILVER-DALE.
CHAPTER LIII. OF THE WORD WHICH HALL-WARD OF THE STEER HAD FOR FOLK-MIGHT.
CHAPTER LIV. TIDINGS OF DALLACH: A FOLK-MOTE IN SILVER-DALE.
CHAPTER LV. DEPARTURE FROM SILVER-DALE.
CHAPTER LVI. TALK UPON THE WILD-WOOD WAY.
CHAPTER LVII. HOW THE HOST CAME HOME AGAIN.
CHAPTER LVIII. HOW THE MAIDEN WARD WAS HELD IN BURGDALE.
CHAPTER LIX. THE BEHEST OF FACE-OF-GOD TO THE BRIDE ACCOMPLISHED: A MOTE-STEAD APPOINTED FOR THE THREE FOLKS, TO WIT, THE MEN OF BURGDALE, THE SHEPHERDS, AND THE CHILDREN OF THE WOLF.