So the Maid took Walter by the hand, and thus they went down quietly, and the Bear- folk, seeing them, stood all together, facing them, to abide their coming.

Walter saw of them, that though they were very tall and bigly made, they were not so far above the stature of men as to be marvels.

The carles were long-haired, and shaggy of beard, and their hair all red or tawny; their skins, where their naked flesh showed, were burned brown with sun and weather, but to a fair and pleasant brown, nought like to blackamoors.

The queans were comely and well-eyed; nor was there anything of fierce or evil-looking about either the carles or the queans, but somewhat grave and solemn of aspect were they.

Clad were they all, saving the young men-children, but somewhat scantily, and in nought save sheep-skins or deer-skins.
For weapons they saw amongst them clubs, and spears headed with bone or flint, and ugly axes of big flints set in wooden handles; nor was there, as far as they could see, either now or afterward, any bow amongst them.
But some of the young men seemed to have slings done about their shoulders.
Now when they were come but three fathom from them, the Maid lifted up her voice, and spake clearly and sweetly: "Hail, ye folk of the Bears! we have come amongst you, and that for your good and not for your hurt: wherefore we would know if we be welcome." There was an old man who stood foremost in the midst, clad in a mantle of deer-skins worked very goodly, and with a gold ring on his arm, and a chaplet of blue stones on his head, and he spake: "Little are ye, but so goodly, that if ye were but bigger, we should deem that ye were come from the Gods' House.