Page:The Sundering Flood - Morris - 1898.djvu/250

 matters of the Dale, both the tidings of his own day and of the days of his fathers; and therewith were men well content, for a good tale-teller he was.

No little also he talked with Sir Godrick, and especially on one matter; for his mind dwelt much on those same Skimmers whom they had overthrown, and he kept weighing them against those evil aliens with whom he had fought across the Sundering Flood, and who, he deemed full surely, had borne away Elfhild. And on a day he asked Sir Godrick concerning it, and if these two sorts of wretches had aught to do with it; and he told him all the story of that battle, and what like his foemen were in body and array, and of their horses and armour and weapons, and of their shrieks and the gibbering of their Latin. Then said Sir Godrick: I will tell thee what meseemeth of thy foemen of that day, that they be of the kindred of these Black Skimmers, though of another tribe, so that men call them the Red Skimmers, though ye shall know that neither the Red nor the Black call themselves Skimmers, which is but a name of terror which the country-folk have fixed on them for their evil deeds. Now further, although the Red Skimmers be worse than any men else, they are not so bad as the Black. That is, they are more like men and less like wolves standing upright: to wit, they waste not and destroy not everything forthright, but keep it to make some gain thereof. As for example, they slay not and rip not up all their