As they passed on that day the heights descended, spreading eastwards into wooded hills. The land grew milder and more green of face. Ancient trees sentinelled the river; broad valleys swept from it under the sapphire sky. Hills grey with olives, dusky with cypresses and firs, rose from green meadows, sleek and brilliant under the sun.
About noon, they rounded a rocky point, where myrtles clambered up the bluff brow of the hill. In the northern shallows they saw a boat moored and a peasant fishing. As the galley drew near with a steady pulse of oars, Tristan stood in the prow and hailed the man over the water. The fisherman fingered his line, and sat staring none too trustfully at the galley sliding towards him with ripples prattling at its prow. Strange ships sailed seldom into those quiet waters; the bloody deeds of Norse pirates still lived in the heart of the peasantry.
Tristan, seeing the man’s distrust, tossed him a piece of silver from the leather purse at his girdle. The fisher groped for it amid the cordage at the bottom of the boat. Questioned, he told them of the knights and barons of those parts, of the castles and hamlets therein, of the roads and forest ways. His lord was a certain Sir Parsival, who held a tower perched upon a neighbouring hill. Lastly, he described the region known as La Vallée Joyeuse, a rich and pleasant pasture land, where vineyards purpled the hills, and Sir Ronan the Peaceful had his home.
Tristan, leaning on his sword, bade his men pole in towards the northern bank, where a stretch of meadowland swept to the myrtle thickets that hid the rocks. The water lay still as glass in the shallows. The woods cast purple shadows athwart the stream, and the meads stood thick with many flowers. The galley ran aground in a little inlet where reeds and rushes bearded the bank. Tristan leapt from the prow, found sure footing, and turned with a smile to face his men.
“Good voyage and a clean sea to you,” he said.
They crowded to the bulwarks with many rough and rugged prayers, holding up their caps to him, proffering their service. Grizzled sea-dogs that they were, they loved, him, even because he was strong and generous, and a giant in arms. Like Homeric mariners gathering round Ulysses at the entry to Hades, they prayed him to share with them the perils of the unknown. Tristan put them off with bluff but unbending gratitude. They would have hindered him, sea-dragons that they were. Such a pilgrimage as his required but a single sword.