speech. Much skill had they in runes, and were exceeding deft in
scoring them on treen bowls, and on staves, and door-posts and roof-
beams and standing-beds and such like things. Many a day when the
snow was drifting over their roofs, and hanging heavy on the tree-
boughs, and the wind was roaring through the trees aloft and rattling
about the close thicket, when the boughs were clattering in the wind,
and crashing down beneath the weight of the gathering freezing snow,
when all beasts and men lay close in their lairs, would they sit long
hours about the house-fire with the knife or the gouge in hand, with
the timber twixt their knees and the whetstone beside them,
hearkening to some tale of old times and the days when their banner
was abroad in the world; and they the while wheedling into growth out
of the tough wood knots and blossoms and leaves and the images of
beasts and warriors and women.

They were called nought save the Woodland-Carles in that day, though
time had been when they had borne a nobler name: and their abode was
called Carlstead. Shortly, for all they had and all they had not,
for all they were and all they were not, they were well-beloved by
their friends and feared by their foes.

Now when Wildlake's Way was gotten to Carlstead, there was an end of
it toward the north; though beyond it in a right line the wood was
thinner, because of the hewing of the Carles. But the road itself
turned west at once and went on through the wood, till some four
miles further it first thinned and then ceased altogether, the ground
going down-hill all the way: for this was the lower flank of the
first great upheaval toward the high mountains. But presently, after
the wood was ended, the land broke into swelling downs and winding
dales of no great height or depth, with a few scattered trees about