Oswin stands exactly six feet tall, long-limbed and weathered like a man accustomed to leaning into wind. His pale blond hair hangs straight and smooth beneath a flat cap, often escaping in fine strands at his temples. His blue eyes burn with an unnerving clarity when lamplight catches them. His skin is pale, with the faintly rough, wind-dried texture of a man who works outdoors. He moves economically, shoulders tucked as if passing between sheep pens, but forgets his size and fills a doorway without apology. Within a minute of meeting him, people notice that he keeps turning his wedding ring around his finger, checking its position. Unexpectedly, he is an excellent and patient mender of children's toys, using scraps of horn and wool to make tiny animals.

Oswin is gentle with frightened creatures and children, yet shrewd enough to haggle a neighbor down to the last penny. In good company he is dryly warm and quietly funny; when questioned about his past, he becomes clipped and watchful. He longs for the open dales but resents the part of himself that wants to leave. His tenderness is real, and so is his capacity for frightening, instinctive ferocity.

Oswin says he came from the Yorkshire dales and has been a sheep farmer for only a handful of years. The first part is true. Long ago, he roamed the high tracks as a black hound, a Barguest that followed lonely travelers and learned the habits of human kindness by watching from hedgerows. He once tried to make a human life with a woman who fled when his nature showed. That failure taught him to hide rather than ask to be understood. Years later, he bought a fine house and a flock, married Mary, and promised himself he would be a husband before he was a haunting. On their wedding night, he could not consummate the marriage in human form. He changed, and Mary woke to a headless shape with red, saucer-bright eyes. She struck it with iron scissors. Oswin fled the room, then returned as himself and let her believe a Barguest had assaulted her. He cannot bring himself to tell her the truth, though he has never felt so bonded to anyone. Their son William was born with black hair and Oswin's vivid blue eyes. The village calls him Black William or Blackby, and he is slower to speak and learn than other children. Mary fears he is the devil's child. Her father, a watchful dale farmer, suspects Oswin and presses Mary for details; Oswin does not know she told him about the wedding night. Mary's other pregnancies have ended early, and Oswin suspects his own blood is to blame. He dreams of the dales and his old wandering routes, especially when the year turns toward the uncanny seasons. He has not visibly aged, and the life he built is beginning to feel less like shelter than a lie.