The Place
The Moaning Moor is a moor of pale shade, and the moor is 200 km wide, and the moor keeps the dead and the wind. The ground of the moor is grey where the Wraiths keep it, and the grey breaks where the souls have passed, and the break is the moor's only light. The grey of the moor is the moor's only ground, and the ground is where the souls are kept. The air above the moor is thick with the moan, and the moan is the moor's only voice, and the voice is what the wind keeps in the shade. The grass of the moor is pale green where the cold has not taken it, and the green is the moor's way of keeping the year. The moor smells of wet stone and old promise and the cold that does not ask permission.
Three hollows run through the moor, and the hollows are where the Wraiths keep the souls that have not found their rest. The largest hollow, the Deep Moan, runs 300 m end to end, and the light that comes from it is grey at the bottom, and the grey is the color of the promise, and the promise is what the moor keeps in the dark. The moor is never silent, because the moan moves in the shade, and the moving is the moor's way of talking. At dusk the grey of the moor turns blue where the light leaves it, and the blue is the moor's way of saying the day is done. This is the place where the promise is kept, and the promise is the moor's only harvest.
How They Live
The Wraiths keep the moor in the shade, and the shade is the moor's only house and the hollows are the moor's only room. The hollows are cut by the moan, which is the Wraiths' only tool, and the moan cuts the grey stone as easily as air, and the cutting is the moor's only building. Food comes from the moor: the soul that is kept, the name that is paid, and the promise that is moved in the middle of the shade. The keeping of the soul is the moor's only eating, and the eating is the moor's way of keeping the hunger. Water is drawn from the cold of the moor, and the cold gives its water to the moor in the slow drip of the shade, and the dripping is the moor's way of keeping the day. Light comes from the grey of the shade where the moor holds it, and the grey is the moor's only lamp.
The defense is the moor, and a visitor who stands in the moor is already inside the soul, and the soul is the alarm, the welcome, and the sentence. The day is not measured in the moor, because there is no day in the shade, and the not-measuring is the moor's way of keeping the promise. The rite of the moor is the moaning: when a soul is kept in the hollow for the first time, the moor names it, and the name is the first promise the soul will ever pay, and the paying is the moor's only word.
People
Home of the Wraiths, whose moors are counted by moan, and the Wraiths of the moor number in the hundreds of heads that keep the pale shade. The oldest wraith holds the Deep Moan, and rank in the moor is decided by how many souls one has kept, and the keeping is the moor's only rank. No living thing is welcome in the moor, because the living are the promise, and the promise is kept in the shade, and the keeping is the moor's way of turning the living off. A wayfarer who has crossed the moor once calls it the honest shade, and he says the moor there keeps the promise and the promise keeps the soul, and he says the grey of the moor there is the only ground that keeps its word.
In Stories
The place where the moan is the only honest promise, and the promise is the soul, and the soul is the shade, and the shade is the end. Uaellaen crossed the moor in the second year, and the moan did not keep his name. He did not stop, and the moor did not ask him back.