"Of parents," I suggested.
"No," said Dream decisively. "You cannot love those whom you do not know."
"But how does it happen that you do not know your parents?"
"How should I? Sometimes for two years, sometimes for three—as the gods decide—the child remains with its parents. After that it is taken away from its parents and brought up by the gods. That is the law."
"But these women who have their children taken away from them—how do they bear it?"
"Sometimes they are so sad that they go away into the forest and eat the nightshade and die. More often they weep for a long time and then they forget. When a thing is the law and it cannot be altered, there are very few who become angry or grieved about it. What would be the use? The gods are very careful about the children, you know."
"In what way careful?"
"If a child is weak, sickly, or misshapen, it is killed instantly. If it is unable to learn how to do any work it is killed. The strong which remain are well treated. For some years they do little work, they are well fed, they are healthy and happy."
I thought of the gangs of magnificently built men that I had seen at work in the fields. I looked at the strong and beautiful girl beside me. The drastic methods of the lords of Thule had at least brought about one thing—the highest possible physical condition of the race.
"Tell me," I said, "do your gods interfere also in the matter of marriage?"