The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Story of the Glittering Plain, by William
Morris

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Title: The Story of the Glittering Plain
or the Land of Living Men

Author: William Morris

Release Date: October 16, 2007 [eBook #2565]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF THE GLITTERING
PLAIN***

Transcribed from the 1913 Longmans, Green and Co. edition by David Price,
email ccx074@pglaf.org

THE STORY OF THE GLITTERING PLAIN WHICH HAS BEEN ALSO CALLED THE LAND OF
LIVING MEN OR THE ACRE OF THE UNDYING

WRITTEN
BY WILLIAM MORRIS

POCKET EDITION

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
1913

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

First printed in the _English Illustrated Magazine_, Vol. VII, 1890.

First Edition in book form, 200 copies printed at the Kelmscott Press in
the Golden Type, quarto, April 1891, Reeves and Turner, with six copies
on vellum.

Printed at the Kelmscott Press in the Troy Type, with wood-engravings
from designs by Walter Crane, 250 copies and seven on vellum, January
1894.

Printed September 1891, in imperial 16mo.

Transferred to Longmans, Green and Co., June 1896.

Reprinted February 1898 and August 1904.

Included in Volume XIV of the _Collected Works of William Morris_, July
1912.

Included in Longmans' Pocket Library, November 1913.

CHAPTER I: OF THOSE THREE WHO CAME TO THE HOUSE OF THE RAVEN

It has been told that there was once a young man of free kindred and
whose name was Hallblithe: he was fair, strong, and not untried in
battle; he was of the House of the Raven of old time.

This man loved an exceeding fair damsel called the Hostage, who was of
the House of the Rose, wherein it was right and due that the men of the
Raven should wed.

She loved him no less, and no man of the kindred gainsaid their love, and
they were to be wedded on Midsummer Night.

But one day of early spring, when the days were yet short and the nights
long, Hallblithe sat before the porch of the house smoothing an ash stave
for his spear, and he heard the sound of horse-hoofs drawing nigh, a