They tell me our kind was friendly with the old gods, and with older gods before them. Yet never have we made offering or worship. I’ve tried and fai… - Poul Anderson

Winter lay among the Outer Hebrides. Day was a sullen glimmer between two darknesses, often smothered in snow. When it did not fling itself upon the rocks and burst in freezing spume, the North Atlantic rolled in heavy and gnawing. There was no real horizon; leaden waves met leaden sky and misty leaden light hid the seam.

Light fills the air, wind is aglow, drink of it, breathe of it, make leafing. Rainfall sows itself, it grows down through soil to the secret places where stones abide; it brings the strength of them up rootward. Lie still, molder away, then be again grass.

For himself, he had never thought it would be this bad. He had stopped remembering her, except maybe ten times a day, but now she came to him and the forgetting would have to be done all over again.