What has always distinguished the Shaftali people is their hospitality. The great historians have written of it repeatedly: of the effort the Shaftali people go through, to treat every stranger as a member of the family. They say, perhaps rightly, that this tradition has an element of self-interest, for to feed and shelter the homeless wanderer prevents crime and theft. But in fact this custom goes much deeper than self-interest.

The Land of Shaftal is unforgiving, a place of harsh winters and brief summers, where sometimes only luck might decide the difference between death and survival. That once was the case, long ago, in the time of the first G'deon, Mackapee. But as Mackapee sat in his isolated cave by a peat fire, watching over his sheep, he imagined Shaftal as a community based on mercy. Kindness and generosity, he wrote, can never be earned and will never be deserved. Hospitality is not an act of justice, but of mercy--a mercy beneficial to everyone, by making it possible to depend on and trust each other.