William Morris - Roots of the Mountains

The Roots of the Mountains was the second in a projected series of three historical novels set in a pre-medieval Germanic world (the third was not completed). It follows the themes of House of the Wolfings, which was published in the same year, into a later generation. A loose alliance of Dalesmen, Woodlanders and Shepherds who have lived in peace around the valley of Burgdale for so long that they barely remember war, find their peace disturbed by the Sons of the Wolf and the invading Dusky Men. Morris’s exploration of the social and economic organization of this fictional pre-medieval world reflects his socialism; the figure of the Dusky Men (unable to breed with the Germanic tribes and slaughtered without compassion) reflects the racial politics of his times. Long neglected, Morris’s two Germanic novels were rediscovered when they were published as the sixteenth and nineteenth volumes in the celebrated Newcastle Forgotten Fantasy Library. — Summary by Phil Benson