‘Kinsman,’ said Iron-face, ‘look at these two dead men, and tell me, if thou hast seen any such besides those two murder-carles who were slain at Carlstead; or if thou knowest aught of their folk?’ Said Face-of-god: ‘Yesterday I saw six others like to these both in array and of body, and three of them I slew, for we were in battle with them early in the morning.’ There was a murmur of joy at this word, since all men took these felons for deadly foemen; but Iron-face said: ‘What meanest thou by “we”?’ ‘I and the men who had guested me overnight,’ said Face-of-god, ‘and they slew the other three; or rather a woman of them slew the felons.’ ‘Valiant she was; all good go with her hand!’ said the Alderman. ‘But what be these people, and where do they dwell?’ Said Face-of-god: ‘As to what they are, they are of the kindred of the Gods and the Fathers, valiant men, and guest-cherishing: rich have they been, and now are poor: and their poverty cometh of these same felons, who mastered them by numbers not to be withstood. As to where they dwell: when I say the name of their dwelling-place men mock at me, as if I named some valley in the moon: yet came I to Burgdale thence in one day across the mountain-necks led by sure guides, and I tell thee that the name of their abode is Shadowy Vale.’ ‘Yea,’ said Iron-face, ‘knoweth any man here of Shadowy Vale, or where it is?’ None answered for a while; but there was an old man who was sitting on the shafts of a wain on the outskirts of the throng, and when he heard this word he asked his neighbour what the Alderman was saying, and he told him. Then said that elder: ‘Give me place; for I have a word to say hereon.’ Therewith he arose, and made his way to the front of the ring of men, and said: ‘Alderman, thou knowest me?’ ‘Yea,’ said Iron-face, ‘thou art called the Fiddle, because of thy sweet speech and thy minstrelsy; whereof I mind me well in the time when I was young and thou no longer young.’