House of the Wolfings: The William Morris Book that Inspired J. R. R. Tolkiena *s The Lord of the Rings Read Online Free PDF Page A

of skin but for the sun’s burning,
and the wind’s parching, and whereas they were tanned of a very
ruddy and cheerful hue. But the thralls were some of them of a
shorter and darker breed, black-haired also and dark-eyed, lighter
of limb; sometimes better knit, but sometimes crookeder of leg and
knottier of arm. But some also were of build and hue not much
unlike to the freemen; and these doubtless came of some other Folk
of the Goths which had given way in battle before the Men of the
Mark, either they or their fathers.
    Moreover some of the freemen were unlike
their fellows and kindred, being slenderer and closer-knit, and
black-haired, but grey-eyed withal; and amongst these were one or
two who exceeded in beauty all others of the House.
    Now the sun was set and the glooming was at
point to begin and the shadowless twilight lay upon the earth. The
nightingales on the borders of the wood sang ceaselessly from the
scattered hazel-trees above the greensward where the grass was
cropped down close by the nibbling of the rabbits; but in spite of
their song and the divers voices of the men-folk about the houses,
it was an evening on which sounds from aloof can be well heard,
since noises carry far at such tides.
    Suddenly they who were on the edges of those
throngs and were the less noisy, held themselves as if to listen;
and a group that had gathered about a minstrel to hear his story
fell hearkening also round about the silenced and hearkening
tale-teller: some of the dancers and singers noted them and in
their turn stayed the dance and kept silence to hearken; and so
from group to group spread the change, till all were straining
their ears to hearken the tidings. Already the men of the
night-shift had heard it, and the shepherds of them had turned
about, and were trotting smartly back through the lanes of the tall
wheat: but the horse-herds were now scarce seen on the darkening
meadow, as they galloped on fast toward their herds to drive home
the stallions. For what they had heard was the tidings of war.
    There was a sound in the air as of a
humble-bee close to the ear of one lying on a grassy bank; or
whiles as of a cow afar in the meadow lowing in the afternoon when
milking-time draws nigh: but it was ever shriller than the one, and
fuller than the other; for it changed at whiles, though after the
first sound of it, it did not rise or fall, because the eve was
windless. You might hear at once that for all it was afar, it was a
great and mighty sound; nor did any that hearkened doubt what it
was, but all knew it for the blast of the great war-horn of the
Elkings, whose Roof lay up Mirkwood-water next to the Roof of the
Wolfings.
    So those little throngs broke up at once;
and all the freemen, and of the thralls a good many, flocked, both
men and women, to the Man’s-door of the hall, and streamed in
quietly and with little talk, as men knowing that they should hear
all in due season.
    Within under the Hall-Sun, amidst the woven
stories of time past, sat the elders and chief warriors on the
dais, and amidst of all a big strong man of forty winters, his dark
beard a little grizzled, his eyes big and grey. Before him on the
board lay the great War-horn of the Wolfings carved out of the tusk
of a sea-whale of the North and with many devices on it and the
Wolf amidst them all; its golden mouth-piece and rim wrought finely
with flowers. There it abode the blowing, until the spoken word of
some messenger should set forth the tidings borne on the air by the
horn of the Elkings.
    But the name of the dark-haired chief was
Thiodolf (to wit Folk-wolf) and he was deemed the wisest man of the
Wolfings, and the best man of his hands, and of heart most
dauntless. Beside him sat the fair woman called the Hall-Sun; for
she was his foster-daughter before men’s eyes; and she was
black-haired and grey-eyed like to her fosterer, and never was
woman fashioned fairer: she was young of years, scarce twenty
winters old.
    There sat the chiefs and