The forest was just beyond the village's open fields for crops or the odd sheep or goat. A few were rich enough to afford the cattle to help them till the land, but such luxuries were more often found further down south. It took more to feed one of the large heifers during the long winters and only be granted milk and physical labor in turn. A sheep or goat would give milk and the latter would grant wool while the former was better than any sentry.  A few of the children watching the idling grazing communal herd waved to Gwendolyn as she passed, some bearing the leather straps of slings. Obviously practicing their aim with the useful tool that helped them scare off predators, though a few of the children seemed to be taking the added precaution of keeping in groups. Anything that would snatch a sheep could well snatch one of them.

As the young woman wandered through the forest, the branches arched overhead and the path was little more than a breakthrough the brush that was devoid of sticks gathered by others for firewood, or any edible plants that might serve someone for a meal. Sunlight grew in the sky and broke through the trees as a squirrel high above scolded Gwendolyn for intruding from high up an elm. Birds fluttered through the canopy, singing out tunes to one another in gossip. The yarrow plant was slowly disappearing having fallen out of season a moon or two before, but the darker shade of the stinging nettles bristled along one side of the clearing. It was not unusual for deer or boar to take shelter in the bush.

But that was not the only darker shadow within the clearing. As Gwendolyn bent down to slice the last of the season's yarrow, the healer would notice blood along the ground. Tuffs of fur as though some small creature had been killed and carried off. A small commonplace thing, but when compared with the recent rumors? A worrying sight. The blood led away from the village, towards where Gwendolyn and Arn would know a mountain stream ran down and would cross through the planted fields of Norn. As the trail led out of the cleaning, the blood became less though it appeared only hours old. If Arn were to try tracking he would note that the trail that led to the blood from the stinging nettles would be a rabbit, what left had come upon the creature quickly and killed it. The tracks that left towards the stream, however, were confusing. Others, a small group of young folk, had come across the trail beforehand and smeared the blood and tracks. Though one set of human tracks went after the trail of blood.