As he passed by the warlike men, giants in that day, who
thronged the streets (if streets they might be called), their
half garments parting from their huge limbs, the quiver at their
backs, and the hunting spears in their hands, they laughed and
shouted out, and, pointing to him, cried:

"Morven, the woman! Morven, the cripple! what dost thou among
men?"

For the son of Osslah was small in stature and of slender
strength, and his step had halted from his birth; but he passed
through the warriors unheedingly.

At the outskirts of the city he came upon a tail pile, in which
some old men dwelt by themselves, and counseled the king when
times of danger, or when the failure of the season, the famine,
or the drought, perplexed the ruler, and clouded the savage
fronts of his warrior tribe.

They gave the counsels of experience, and when experience
failed, they drew, in their believing ignorance, assurances and
omens from the winds of heaven, the changes of the moon, and the
flights of the wandering birds. Filled (by the voices of the
elements, and the variety of mysteries which ever shift along
the face of things, unsolved by the wonder which pauses not, the
fear which believes, and that eternal reasoning of all experience,
which assigns causes to effects) with the notion of superior
powers, _they assisted their ignorance by the conjectures of
their superstition_. But as yet they knew no craft and practiced