Herein were our tasks harder than the toil of any mules or
asses, save for the younger and goodlier of the women, whom they
would keep fair and delicate to be their bed-thralls.
'Yet not even so were our bodies safe from their malice: for these
men were not only tyrants, but fools and madmen. Let alone that
there were few days without stripes and torments to satiate their
fury or their pleasure, so that in all streets and nigh any house
might you hear wailing and screaming and groaning; but moreover,
though a wise man would not willingly slay his own thrall any more
than his own horse or ox, yet did these men so wax in folly and
malice, that they would often hew at man or woman as they met them in
the way from mere grimness of soul; and if they slew them it was
well. Thereof indeed came quarrels enough betwixt master and master,
for they are much given to man-slaying amongst themselves: but what
profit to us thereof? Nay, if the dead man were a chieftain, then
woe betide the thralls! for thereof must many an one be slain on his
grave-mound to serve him on the hell-road. To be short: we have
heard of men who be fierce, and men who be grim; but these we may
scarce believe us to be men at all, but trolls rather; and ill will
it be if their race waxeth in the world.
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