mote-house

Updated: July 16, 2025

So he said: 'Brothers, this is my business to deal with; for I see before me the stair that leadeth to the Mote-house of my people, and now would I sit there whereas my fathers sat, when peace was on the Dale, as once more it shall be to-morrow.

William Morris - The Roots of the Mountains; Wherein Is Told Somewhat of the Lives of the Men of Burgdale

Thus then they entered Utterhay, and the captain led them straight to the mote-house whereas the mayor and the porte were sitting; and much people followed them through the streets, wondering at them, and praising the loveliness of the women, and the frank and gallant bearing of the men-at-arms.

William Morris - The Water of the Wondrous Isles

"Perhaps," said he, "you have seen a tolerable picture of these villages as they were before the end of the nineteenth century. Such things exist." "I have seen several of such pictures," said I. "Well," said Hammond, "our villages are something like the best of such places, with the church or mote-house of the neighbours for their chief building.

William Morris - News from Nowhere, or, an Epoch of Rest : being some chapters from a utopian romance

He looked down into the Market-stead, and deemed he could see that nigh the Mote-house the Dusky Men were gathering into some better order; but they were no longer drifting toward the southern bents, but were standing round about the altar as men abiding somewhat; and he deemed that they had gotten more bowshot than before, and that most of them bare bows.

William Morris - The Roots of the Mountains; Wherein Is Told Somewhat of the Lives of the Men of Burgdale

Then all the elders gathered about them, and bade them light down and be at rest amongst them, and they made much of them and brought them into the Mote-house, where-in were both women and men fair and stately, and the men took Ralph by the hand and the women Ursula, and brought them into chambers where they bathed them and did off their wayfaring raiment, and clad them in white woollen gowns of web exceeding fine, and fragrant withal.

William Morris - The Well at the World's End: a tale

Now by this time were many of the men of the Wolf and the Woodlanders gathered on the dais of the Hall; and the Dalesmen noting this, and wotting that these men were now in their own Mote-house, withdrew them as they might for the press toward the nether end thereof.

William Morris - The Roots of the Mountains; Wherein Is Told Somewhat of the Lives of the Men of Burgdale