The Southdowns

The Southdowns are the rolling downs and sheep pastures of Aldmere's south, famous above all for their longbowmen, who can punch through mail at range. Every Southdowns child is given a bow on the first day of spring and shoots at a straw hare, and those who hit it earn the village guild's hare tattoo at sixteen; Sergeant Dunt Wrunvos wears one. Downs hares, buzzards and big black dung beetles live on the grass, and dark yews grow in the hearth-yards, giving the wood for the longbow and berries that kill. The Downs tell of Wemm, the boy who shot a hundred arrows at the moon to win a girl, and the Southdowns are counted among the Crownmen, who want the king to rule and the Moot to advise. The towns of Ownvos and Wrunvos lie here.

See also: Ownvos, Wrunvos