For wretched and befouled was that well-builded house: the
hangings rent away; the goodly painted walls daubed and smeared with
wicked tokens of the Alien murderers: the floor, once bright with
polished stones of the mountain, and strewn with sweet-smelling
flowers, was now as foul as the den of the man-devouring troll of the
heaths. From the fair-carven roof of oak and chestnut-beams hung
ugly knots of rags and shapeless images of the sorcery of the Dusky
Men. And furthermore, and above all, from the last tie-beam of the
roof over the dais dangled four shapes of men-at-arms, whom the older
men of the Wolf knew at once for the embalmed bodies of their four
great chieftains, who had been slain on the day of the Great Undoing;
and they cried out with horror and rage as they saw them hanging
there in their weapons as they had lived.
There was the Hostage of the Earth, his shield painted with the green
world circled with the worm of the sea. There was the older Folk-
might, the uncle of the living man, bearing a shield with an oak and
a lion done thereon. There was Wealth-eker, on whose shield was done
a golden sheaf of wheat.
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