Chapter VI. Birdalone Heareth Tell Tales of the Black Valley of the Greywethers

On the morrow was Birdalone heavier of heart than ever yet, and wearier for tidings; and she wondered how she could have been so joyous that day in the wildwood. Yet she thought much of the Valley of the Greywethers, and that solaced her somewhat after a while, so sore she longed to go thither; and, as ’tis said, one nail knocks out the other. So that morning, when she had had her lesson of priest Leonard, she spake thereof to him, and told him what Sir Aymeris had said concerning his knowledge thereof; and she asked him what he knew.

I have been there, said he. She started at that word and said: Did aught of evil befall thee?

Nay, said he, but a great fear and dread hung about me; and ’tis said that they try their luck overmuch who go thither twice.

Birdalone said: Tell me now of the tales that be told of that valley. Quoth Leonard: They be many; but the main of them is this: that those Greywethers be giants of yore agone, or landwights, carles, and queans, who have been turned into stone by I wot not what deed; but that whiles they come alive again, and can walk and talk as erst they did; and that if any man may be so bold as to abide the time of their awakening, and in the first moment of their change may frame words that crave the fulfilment of his desire, and if therewith he be both wise and constant, then shall he have his desire fulfilled of these wights, and bear his life back again from out the dale. And thus must he speak and no otherwise: O Earth, thou and thy first children, I crave of you such and such a thing, whatsoever it may be. And if he speak more than this, then is he undone. He shall answer no question of them; and if they threaten him he shall not pray them mercy, nor quail before their uplifted weapon............