The Lays of Beleriand Read Free Page B

blindly,
    calling 'I cannot, I cannot leave thee.
    0 Morwin, my mother, why makest me go?
    Hateful are the hills where hope is lost.
    0 Morwin, my mother, I am meshed in tears.
    Grim are the hills, and my home is gone.'
    And there came his cries calling faintly
    down the dark alleys of the dreary trees,
    and one who wept weary on the threshold
    heard how the hills said 'my home is gone.'
    155
    160

    165
    170
    The ways were weary and woven with deceit
    o'er the hills of Hithlum to the hidden kingdom deep in the darkness of Doriath's forest;
    and never ere now for need or wonder
    had children of Men chosen that pathway,
    and few of the folk have followed it since.
    There Turin and the twain knew torment of thirst, and hunger and fear and hideous nights,
    for wolfriders and wandering Orcs
    and the Things of Morgoth thronged the woodland.
    Magics were about them, that they missed their ways and strayed steerless, and the stars were hid.
    Thus they passed the mountains, but the mazes of Doriath wildered and wayworn in wanhope bound them.
    They had nor bread nor water, and bled of strength their death they deemed it to die forewandered, when they heard a horn that hooted afar,
    and baying dogs. It was Beleg the hunter,
    who farthest fared of his folk abroad
    ahunting by hill and hollow valley,
    175
    180
    185
    190
    who cared not for concourse and commerce of men.
    He was great of growth and goodly-limbed,
    but lithe of girth, and lightly on the ground his footsteps fell as he fared towards them,
    all garbed in grey and green and brown --
    a son of the wilderness who wist no sire.
    195
    200
    'Who are ye?' he asked. 'Outlaws, or maybe
    hard hunted men whom hate pursueth? '
    'Nay, for famine and thirst we faint,' saith Halog,
    'wayworn and wildered, and wot not the road.
    Or hast not heard of the hills of slain,
    or the tear-drenched field where the terror and fire of Morgoth devoured both Men and Elves?
    There Thalion Erithamrod and his thanes like gods vanished from the earth, and his valiant lady weeps yet widowed as she waits in Hithlum.
    Thou lookest on the last of the lieges of Morwin and Thalion's son Turin, who to Thingol's court are wending by the word of the wife of Hurin.'
    205
    210
    Then Beleg bade them be blithe, and said:
    'The Gods have guided you to good keeping.
    I have heard of the house of Hurin the Steadfast --
    and who hath not heard of the hills of slain, of Ninin Unothradin, the Unnumbered Tears?
    To that war I went not, but wage a feud
    with the Orcs unending, whom mine arrows bitter oft stab unseen and strike to death.
    I am the huntsman Beleg of the Hidden People.'
    215
    220
    Then he bade them drink, and drew from his belt a flask of leather full filled with wine
    that is bruised from the berries of the burning South-- 225
    and the Gnome-folk know it, and the nation of the Elves, and by long ways lead it to the lands of the North.
    There baked flesh and bread from his wallet
    they had to their hearts' joy; but their heads were mazed by the wine of Dor-Winion that went in their veins, 230
    and they soundly slept on the soft needles
    of the tall pine-trees that towered above.
    Later they wakened and were led by ways
    devious winding through the dark wood-realm
    by slade and slope and swampy thicket
    through lonely days and long night-times,
    and but for Beleg had been baffled utterly
    by the magic mazes of Melian the Queen.
    To the shadowy shores he showed the way
    where stilly that stream strikes 'fore the gates of the cavernous court of the King of Doriath.
    O'er the guarded bridge he gained a passage,
    and thrice they thanked him, and thought in their hearts
    'the Gods are good' -- had they guessed maybe what the future enfolded they had feared to live.

    235
    240
    245
    To the throne of Thingol the three were come, and their speech sped them; for he spake them fair, and held in honour Hurin the steadfast,
    Beren Ermabwed's brother-in-arms.
    Remembering Morwin, of mortals fairest,
    he turned not Turin in