the Land of Fords

A land of forest, peat bogs and cold — the heart around which Holmford's life turns. The region's spine runs south to north along the wooded river Blackwater: from the ford at Holmford, up the river toward the marshes, to the Spread, where five roads part, then by causeway across the mire toward the old steading and the road to the Wool. The great boggy valley of the North makes a natural belt of wild country between the village and the land of towns "beyond the Wool." The weather here is harsh: autumn comes early and hard, the first killing frosts and blizzards can fall in a few days, and the cold in the wild kills as surely as any beast.