here. Over
thy head while thou didst sleep they have built them constantly. My
four children the Winds suffocate with the fumes of them, the
valleys are desolate of flowers, and the lovely forests are cut down
since last we went abroad together.'

The Earthquake lay there, with his snout towards the city, blinking
at the lights, while the tall Hurricane stood beside him pointing
fiercely at it.

'Come,' said the Hurricane, 'let us fare forth again and destroy
them, that all the lovely forests may come back and the furry
creeping things. Thou shalt whelm these cities utterly and drive the
people forth, and I will smite them in the shelterless places and
sweep their desecrations from the sea. Wilt thou come forth with me
and do this thing for the glory of it? Wilt thou wreck the world
again as we did, thou and I, or ever Man had come? Wilt thou come
forth to this place at this hour tomorrow night?'

'Yes,' said the Earthquake, 'Yes,' and he crept to his cleft again,
and head foremost waddled down into the abysses.

When the Hurricane strode away, I got up quietly and departed, but
at that hour of the next night I came up cautiously to the same
spot. There I found the huge grey form of the Hurricane alone, with
his head bowed in his hands, weeping; for the Earthquake sleeps long
and heavily in the abysses, and he would not wake.

The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save For Sacnoth

In a wood older than record, a foster brother of the hills, stood
the village of Allathurion; and there was peace between the people
of that village and all the folk who walked in the dark ways of the
wood, whether they were human or of the tribes of the beasts or of
the race of the fairies and the elves and the little sacred spirits
of trees and streams. Moreover, the village people had peace among
themselves and between them and their lord, Lorendiac. In front of
the village was a wide and grassy space, and beyond this the great
wood again, but at the back the trees came right up to the houses,
which, with their great beams and wooden framework and thatched
roofs, green with moss, seemed almost to be a part of the forest.

Now in the time I tell of, there was trouble in Allathurion, for of
an evening fell dreams were wont to come slipping through the tree
trunks and into the peaceful village; and they assumed dominion of
men's minds and led them in watches of the night through the cindery
plains of Hell. Then the magician of t