In the time of Heriwulf's grandparents, the Brown Wizard had traveled amongst the many settlements, camps, and villages of the Woodmen so regularly that there was always a room waiting for him. But long years ago, his visits had become far more scarce; he kept in his dwelling at Rhosgobel, or ventured on his own business, into the Mirkwood or elsewhere, no Woodman could say where. The business of a Wizard is to be known to ordinary folk only rarely, when the Wizard wished for it to be known.
It was some years ago on a mist-shrouded afternoon near to sunset when the Wizard ambled in his peculiar way into Heriwulf's tribe's clan-house, perched under the eaves of the Mirkwood about a day's hike south of the Forest Gate, almost in view of the Carrock. He spoke briefly to the chieftain, and it was announced he would be staying for some days, leading to much speculation and excitement, particularly amongst the younger Woodmen of the tribe. The great hall of the clan-house was no longer large enough for the entire tribe to eat together at once, but for this one night, with the Wizard of Rhosgobel in attendance, everyone who could not find a seat, found a corner to stand in.
When the feasting had concluded, the Wizard stood and spoke at some length, in his rambling, roundabout way. He told the clan how its efforts over the last few generations to drive out the poison that lingered in the Mirkwood from the long occupation of Dol Guldur had yielded many victories, but not as many as they thought. Often, the darkness had merely been driven into hiding, and now that the Enemy was gathering strength, and darker days were coming, things once more were crawling in parts of the forest that had been thought purged by the Woodmen, the Elves of Thranduil's court, or the Beornings. The clan's efforts must be redoubled to ready for great and terrible struggles to come.
The silence that fell over the hall was profound at this disheartening news. But this was not what had brought Radagast to this humble tribe. The gathering of the forces of darkness was not happening only in the darkened copses of the Mirkwood, but all over the lands of Middle-earth. The Wizard spoke of a place beyond the mountains to the west where a threat was rising, akin to the days when the noble Greenwood first began to succumb -- a dire threat, but also a moment of great promise, for if he moved now to stop it before it took root, a whole land might be spared the fate of the Greenwood. He was making for this land, and had asked the Chieftain if he could have a small number of the tribe to escort him, protect him, to help him find his way.
"No one will be sent on this mission," the Chieftain spoke in her soft yet strong voice, "but any may choose to go with the Wizard. You may be gone for some time."
Every man or woman who chose to undertake this journey did so out of a sense of duty to the unending struggle against the Enemy. But, too, they chose for their own reasons, often reasons they shared with no one else.
Heriwulf loved his clan and its home, but it was a love tinged with some hurts that would never fade. The memory of loves and family lost long before, distant but never forgotten; but also, the thought of more recent hurts, fresher in the heart, a parting of ways that might be easier to bear if it were accompanied by a true parting. He would bring his best and strongest hounds, and they would be, as they had always been, his dearest friends. And his wisest. Often with his tribemates he had been maddeningly frustrated; on growing close to someone, he'd learn in time that they suffered the same folly as his stepfather. Too weak to lead, too insecure to follow. But never so for hounds. When hounds meet, they decide which leads and which follows. Once that's settled, they're both happier and stronger. If only people were as wise as hounds.
The crossing of the High Pass was arduous and uncomfortable but brought little danger, and nothing his hounds could not handle. The lands beyond were fresh and untroubled, or so it seemed to him. They visited many places, some dry and seemingly empty, some choked with farms and villages and cities. These last were the most uncomfortable for the Woodmen, so as the Wizard's business went on not for weeks or months but years, they chose a place in a familiar-feeling woodland that the local folk called the Chetwood, under its eaves between rolling hills and boggy lowlands, and built a small, humble settlement.
Which would in time come to feel like a home to many of the small company of Woodmen. The thought of returning to the Vales was as a dream one wakes from, full of a sense of urgency and the palpable reality of immanent truth, only to find moments later it has slipped away into the mist of memory, lost.
The Wizard is rarely seen by the Woodmen now, going about his business amongst a people called the Eglain, in the lands West of the mountains, or perhaps beyond, rarely visiting the Woodmen dwelling in their humble clan-house crouching under the eaves of the forest. Perhaps nothing has really changed at all.
