Read Online House of the Wolfings: The William Morris Book that Inspired J. R. R. Tolkiena *s The Lord of the Rings by Michael W. Perry - Free Book Online Page B

glorious shining one
    And he took me up and set me on his shoulder
for a while
    And turned about to his fellows with a
blithe and joyous smile;
    And they shouted aloud about me and drew
forth gleaming swords
    And clashed them on their bucklers; but
nought I knew of the words
    Of their shouting and rejoicing. So
thereafter was I laid
    And borne forth on the warrior’s warshield,
and our way through the wood we made
    ’Midst the mirth and great contentment of
those fair-clad shielded men.

    But no tale of the wolf and the wild-wood
abides with me since then,
    And the next thing I remember is a huge and
dusky hall,
    A world for my little body from ancient wall
to wall;
    A world of many doings, and nought for me to
do,
    A world of many noises, and known to me were
few.

    Time wore, and I spoke with the Wolfings and
knew the speech of the kin,
    And was strange ’neath the roof no longer,
as a lonely waif therein;
    And I wrought as a child with my playmates
and every hour looked on,
    Unto the next hour’s joyance till the happy
day was done.
    And going and coming amidst us was a woman
tall and thin
    With hair like the hoary barley and silver
streaks therein.
    And kind and sad of visage, as now I
remember me,
    And she sat and told us stories when we were
aweary with glee,
    And many of us she fondled, but me the most
of all.

    And once from my sleep she waked me and bore
me down the hall,
    In the hush of the very midnight, and I was
feared thereat.
    But she brought me unto the dais, and there
the warrior sat,
    Who took me up and kissed me, as erst within
the wood;
    And meseems in his arms I slumbered: but I
wakened again and stood
    Alone with the kindly woman, and gone was
the goodly man,
    And athwart the hush of the Folk-hall the
moon shone bright and wan,
    And the woman dealt with a lamp hung up by a
chain aloft,
    And she trimmed it and fed it with oil,
while she chanted sweet and soft
    A song whose words I knew not: then she ran
it up again,
    And up in the darkness above us died the
length of its wavering chain.

    “Yea,” said the carline, “this woman will
have been the Hall-Sun that came before thee. What next dost thou
remember?”
    Said the maiden:

    Next I mind me of the hazels behind the
People’s Roof,
    And the children running thither and the
magpie flitting aloof,
    And my hand in the hand of the Hall-Sun, as
after the others we went,
    And she soberly hearkening my prattle and
the words of my intent.
    And now would I call her ‘Mother,’ and
indeed I loved her well.

    So I waxed; and now of my memories the tale
were long to tell;
    But as the days passed over, and I fared to
field and wood,
    Alone or with my playmates, still the days
were fair and good.
    But the sad and kindly Hall-Sun for my
fosterer now I knew,
    And the great and glorious warrior that my
heart clung sorely to
    Was but my foster-father; and I knew that I
had no kin
    In the ancient House of the Wolfings, though
love was warm therein.

    Then smiled the carline and said: “Yea, he
is thy foster-father, and yet a fond one.”
    “Sooth is that,” said the Hall-Sun. “But
wise art thou by seeming. Hast thou come to tell me of what kindred
I am, and who is my father and who is my mother?”
    Said the carline: “Art thou not also wise?
Is it not so that the Hall-Sun of the Wolfings seeth things that
are to come?”
    “Yea,” she said, “yet have I seen waking or
sleeping no other father save my foster-father; yet my very mother
I have seen, as one who should meet her in the flesh one day.”
    “And good is that,” said the carline; and as
she spoke her face waxed kinder, and she said:
    “Tell us more of thy days in the House of
the Wolfings and how thou faredst there.”
    Said the Hall-Sun:

    I waxed ’neath the Roof of the Wolfings,
till now to look upon
    I was of sixteen winters, and the love of
the Folk I won,
    And in lovely weed they clad me like the
image of a God:
    And lonely now full often the wild-wood ways
I trod,
    And I feared no