There also they held their great casts and
made offerings to the Gods for the Fruitfulness of the Year, the
ingathering of the increase, and in Memory of their Forefathers.
Natheless at Yule-tide also they feasted from house to house to be
glad with the rest of Midwinter, and many a cup drank at those feasts
to the memory of the fathers, and the days when the world was wider
to them, and their banners fared far afield.
But besides these dwellings of men in the field between the wall and
the water, there were homesteads up and down the Dale whereso men
found it easy and pleasant to dwell: their halls were built of much
the same fashion as those within the Thorp; but many had a high
garth-wall cast about them, so that they might make a stout defence
in their own houses if war came into the Dale.
As to their work afield; in many places the Dale was fair with growth
of trees, and especially were there long groves of sweet chestnut
standing on the grass, of the fruit whereof the folk had much gain.
Also on the south side nigh to the western end was a wood or two of
yew-trees very great and old, whence they gat them bow-staves, for
the Dalesmen also shot well in the bow.
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