Then the Alderman said: “I would question my son Face-of-god. Let him stand forth!”
And therewith he smiled merrily in his son’s face, for he was standing right in front of him; and he said:
“Ask of me, Alderman, and I will answer.”
“Kinsman,” said Iron-face, “look at these two dead men, and tell me, if thou hast seen any such besides those two murder-carles who were slain at Carlstead; or if thou knowest aught of their folk?”
Said Face-of-god: “Yesterday I saw six others like to these both in array and of body, and three of them I slew, for we were in battle with them early in the morning.”
There was a murmur of joy at this word, since all men took these felons for deadly foemen; but Iron-face said: “What meanest thou by ‘we’?”
“I and the men who had guested me overnight,” said Face-of-god, “and they slew the other three; or rather a woman of them slew the felons.”
“Valiant she was; all good go with her hand!” said the Alderman. “But what be these people, and where do they dwell?”
Said Face-of-god: “As to what they are, they are of the kindred of the Gods and the Fathers, valiant men, and guest-cherishing: rich have they been, and now are poor: and their poverty cometh of these same felons, who mastered them by numbers not to be withstood. As to where they dwell: when I say the name of their dwelling-place men mock at me, as if I named some valley in the moon: yet came I to Burgdale thence in one day across the mountain-necks led by sure guides, and I tell thee that the name of their abode is Shadowy Vale.”
“Yea,” said Iron-face, “knoweth any man here of Shadowy Vale, or where it is?”
None answered for a while; but there was an old man who was sitting on the shafts of a wain on the outskirts of the throng, and when he heard this word he asked his neighbour what the Alderman was saying, and he told him. Then said that elder:
“Give me place; for I have a word to say hereon.” Therewith he arose, and made his way to the front of the ring of men, and said: “Alderman, thou knowest me?”
“Yea,” said Iron-face, “thou art called the Fiddle, because of thy sweet speech and thy minstrelsy; whereof I mind me well in the time when I was young and thou no longer young.”
“So it is,” said the Fiddle. “Now hearken! When I was very young I heard of a vale lying far away across the mountain-necks; a vale where the sun shone never in winter and scantily in summer; for my sworn foster-brother, Fight-fain, a bold man and a great hunter, had happened upon it; and on a day in full midsummer he brought me thither; and even now I see the Vale before me as in a picture; a marvellous place, well grassed, treeless, narrow, betwixt great cliff-walls of black stone, with a green river running through it towards a yawning gap and a huge force. Amidst that Vale was a doom-ring of black stones, and nigh thereto a feast-hall well builded of the like stones, over whose door was carven the image of a wolf with red gaping jaws, and within it (for we entered into it) were stone benches on the dais. Thence we came away, and thither again we went in late autumn, and so dusk and cold it was at that season, that we knew not what to call it save the valley of deep shade. But its real name we never knew; for there was no man there to give us a name or tell us any tale thereof; but all was waste there; the wimbrel laughed across its water, the raven croaked from its crags, the eagle screamed over it, and the voices of its waters never ceased; and thus we left it. So the seasons passed, and we went thither no more: for Fight-fain died, and without him wandering over the waste was irksome to me; so never have I seen that valley again, or heard men tell thereof.
“Now, neighbours, have I told you of a valley which seemeth to be Shadowy Vale; and this is true and no made-up story.”
The Alderman nodded kindly to him, and then said to Face-of-god: “Kinsman, is this word according with what thou knowest of Shadowy Vale?”
“Yea, on all points,” said Face-of-god; “he hath put before me a picture of the valley. And whereas he saith, that in his youth it was waste, this also goeth with my knowledge thereof. For once was it peopled, and then was waste, and now again is it peopled.”
“Tell us then more of the folk thereof,” said the Alderman; “are they many?”
“Nay,” said Face-of-god, “they are not. How might they be many, dwelling in that narrow Vale amid the wastes? But they are valiant, both men and women, and strong and well-liking. Once they dwelt in a fair dale called Silverdale, the name whereof will be to you as a name in a lay; and there were they wealthy and happy. Then fell upon them this murderous Folk, whom they call the Dusky Men; and they fought and were overcome, and many of them were slain, and many enthralled, and the remnant of them escaped through the passes of the mountains and came back to dwell in Shadowy Vale, where their forefathers had dwelt long and long ago; and this overthrow befell them ten years agone. But now their old foemen have broken out from Silverdale and have taken to scouring the wood seeking prey; so they fall upon these Dusky Men as occasion serves, and slay them without pity,
