ing-stead," a
popular assembly a "folk-mote," foresters are "wood-abiders," sailors are
"ship-carles," a family is a "kindred," poetry is "song-craft," [56] and
any kind of enclosure is a "garth." The prose is frequently interchanged
with verse, not by way of lyrical outbursts, but as a variation in the
narrative method, after the manner of the Old French _cantefables_, such
as "Aucassin et Nicolete"; but more exactly after the manner of the
sagas, in which the azoic rock of Eddaic poetry crops out ever and anon
under the prose strata. This Saxonism of style is in marked contrast
with Scott, who employs without question the highly latinised English
which his age had inherited from the last. Nor are Morris' romances
historical in the manner of the Waverley novels. The first two of the
series, however, are historical in the sense that they endeavour to
reproduce in exact detail the picture of an extinct society. Time and
place are not precisely indicated, but the scene is somewhere in the old
German forest, and the period is early in the Christian era, during the
obscure wanderings and settlements of the Gothic tribes. "The House of
the Wolfings" concerns the life of such a community, which has made a
series of clearings in "Mirkwood" on a stream tributary to the Rhine.
The folk of Midmark live very much as Tacitus describes the ancient
Germans as living. Each kindred dwells in a great common hall, like the
hall of the Niblungs or the Volsungs, or of King Hrothgar in "Beowulf."
Their herding and agriculture are described, their implements and
costumes, feasts in hall, songs, rites of worship, public meetings, and
finally their warfare when they go forth against the invading Romans. In
"The Roots of the Mountains" the tribe of the Wolf has been driven into
the woods and mountains by the vanguard of the Hunnish migrations. In
time they make head against these, drive them back, and retake their
fertile valley. In each case there is a love story and, as in Scott, the
private fortunes of the hero and heroine are enwoven with the ongoings of
public events. But it is the general life of the tribe that is of
importance, and there is little individual characterisation. There is a
class of thralls in "The House of the Wolfings," but no single member of
the class is particularised, like Garth, the thrall of Cedric, in
"Ivanhoe."

The later numbers of the series have no semblance of actuality. The last
of all, indeed, "T