are their women fairer than our cousins?'

Face-of-god took up the Bride's hand in his and kissed it and laid it
to his cheek; and then turned to his father and said: 'Nay, father,
I saw not the Wood-carles, nor went to their abode; and on no day do
I lust after their women. Moreover, I brought home a roebuck of the
fattest; but I was over-late for Kettel, and the flesh was ready for
the board by then I came.'

'Well, son,' quoth Iron-face, for he was merry, 'a roebuck is but a
little deer for such big men as are thou and I. But I rede thee take
the Bride along with thee the next time; and she shall seek whilest
thou sleepest, and hit when thou missest.'

Then Face-of-god smiled, but he frowned somewhat also, and he said:
'Well were that, indeed! But if ye must needs drag a true tale out
of me: that roebuck I shot at the very edge of the wood nigh to the
Mote-stead as I was coming home: harts had I seen in the wood and
its lawns, and boars, and bucks, and loosed not at them: for indeed
when I awoke in the morning in that wood-lawn ye wot of, I wandered
up and down with my bow unbent. So it was that I fared as if I were
seeking something, I know not what, that should fill up something
lacking to me, I know not what. Thus I felt in myself even so long
as I was underneath the black boughs, and there was none beside me
and before me, and none to turn aback to: but when I came out again
into the sunshine, and I saw the fair dale, and the happy abode lying
before me, and folk abroad in the meads merry in the eventide; then
was I full fain of it, and loathed the wood as an empty thing that
had nought to give me; and lo you! all that I had been longing for in
the wood, was it not in this House and ready to my hand?--and that is