The Roots of the Mountains

themselves together there in the House which their fathers had builded; and when they saw themselves so meetly ordered, their hearts being full with the sweetness of hope accomplished and the joy of deliverance from death, song arose amongst them, and they fell to singing together; and this is somewhat of their singing:

Now raise we the lay
Of the long-coming day!
Bright, white was the sun
When we saw it begun:
O’er its noon now we live;
It hath ceased not to give;
It shall give, and give more
From the wealth of its store.
O fair was the yesterday! Kindly and good
Was the wasteland our guester, and kind was the wood;
Though below us for reaping lay under our hand
The harvest of weeping, the grief of the land;
Dumb cowered the sorrow, nought daring to cry
On the help of tomorrow, the deed drawing nigh.

All increase throve
In the Dale of our love;
There the ox and the steed
Fed down the mead;
The grapes hung high
’Twixt earth and sky,
And the apples fell
Round the orchard well.
Yet drear was the land there, and all was for nought;
None put forth a hand there for what the year wrought,
And raised it o’erflowing with gifts of the earth.
For man’s grief was growing beside of the mirth
Of the springs and the summers that wasted their wealth;
And the birds, the newcomers, made merry by stealth.

Yet here of old
Abode the bold;
Nor had they wailed
Though the wheat had failed,
And the vine no more
Gave forth her store.
Yea, they found the waste good
For the fearless of mood.
Then to these, that were dwelling aloof from the Dale,
Fared the wild-wind a-telling the worst of the tale;
As men bathed in the morning they saw in the pool
The image of scorning, the throne of the fool.
The picture was gleaming in helm and in sword,
And shone forth its seeming from cups of the board.

Forth then they came
With the battle-flame;
From the Wood and the Waste
And the Dale did they haste:
They saw the storm rise,
And with untroubled eyes
The war-storm they met;
And the rain ruddy-wet.
O’er the Dale then was litten the Candle of Day,
Night-sorrow was smitten, and gloom fled away.
How the grief-shackles sunder! How many to morn
Shall awaken and wonder how gladness was born!
O wont unto sorrow, how sweet unto you
Shall be pondering tomorrow what deed is to do!

Fell many a man
’Neath the edges wan,
In the heat of the play
That fashioned the day.
Praise all ye then
The death of men,
And the gift of the aid
Of the unafraid!
O strong are the living men mighty to save,
And good is their giving, and gifts that we have!
But the dead, they that gave us once, never again;
Long and long shall they save us sore trouble and pain.
O Banner above us, O God of the strong,
Love them as ye love us that bore down our wrong!

So they sang in the Hall; and there was many a man wept, as the song ended, for those that should never see the good days of the Dale, and all the joy that was to be; and men swore, by all that they loved, that they would never forget those that had fallen in the Winning of Silverdale; and that when each year the Cups of Memory went round, they should be no mere names to them, but the very men whom they had known and loved.

XLIX

Dallach Fareth to Rosedale: Crow Telleth of His Errand: The Kindreds Eat Their Meat in Silverdale

Now Dallach, who had gone away for a while, came back again into the Hall; and at his back were a half score of men who bore ladders with them: they were stout men, clad in scanty and ragged raiment, but girt with swords and bearing axes, those of them who were not handling the ladders. Men looked on them curiously, because they saw them to be of the roughest of the thralls. They were sullen and fierce-eyed to behold, and their hands and bare arms were flecked with blood; and it was easy to see that they had been chasing the fleers, and making them pay for their many torments of past days.

But when Face-of-god beheld this he cried out: “Ho, Dallach! is it so that thou hast bethought thee to bring in hither men to fall to the cleansing of the Hall, and to do away the defiling of the Dusky Men?”

“Even so, War-leader,” said Dallach; “also ye shall know that all battle is over in Silverstead; for the thralls fell in numbers not to be endured on the Dusky Men who had turned their backs to us, and hindered them from fleeing north. But though they have slain many, they have not slain all, and the remnant have fled by divers ways westaway, that they may gain the wood and the ways to Rosedale; and the stoutest of the thralls are at their heels, and ever as they go fresh men from the fields join in the chase with great joy. I have gathered together of the best of them two hundreds and a half well-armed; and if thou wilt give me leave, I will get to me yet more, and follow hard on the fleers, and so get me home to Rosedale; for thither will these runaways to meet whatso of their kind may be left there. Also I would fain be there to set some order amongst the poor folk of mine own people, whom this day’s work hath delivered from torment. And if thou wilt suffer a few men of the Dalesmen to come along with me, then shall all things be better done there.”

“Luck go with thine hands!” said Face-of-god. “Take whomso thou wilt of the Burgdalers that have a mind to fare with thee to the number of five score; and send word of thy thriving to Folk-might, the chieftain of the Dale; as for