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(Odin the Wanderer by Georg von Rosen)
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I.
Health to the teller, and those who listen!
Hail to the hearers of this ancient lore:
Our legend of a god who gave his eye
For wisdom from a giant!
Lord o’er men,
Thou champion of mortals – sire who raised
Mankind from cosmic depth, from landscapes bleak
And dreadful wilds sublime: Grant me good cheer,
Who am thy singing skald – grant voice and lung,
A nimble brain, a meter-happy tongue,
And wit to tell thy story well and true.
Prosper, good creation!
* * *
Where the quilt
Of drowsful night drapes long, long o’er the land
In grimmest winter… Where the ice-crags ring
With cracking, crumbling – echoes from their clefts
Against stark cliffs resounding… Where the woods
Dark as the wolf’s maw growl with famished sounds –
Those rav’nous forests, dim as damned souls’ lair…
Where winds from lofty worlds shriek down to shake
The gutt’ring fire of peasant in his hut,
Who pulls his mantle close, and shakes for cold:
There did the Aesir reign, so long ago:
Grand lambent ones, full beauteous, upright –
High kings and queens of stateliness, sweet maids,
Refulgent war-fellows, swingers of the sword –
All lustrous with the frosty light of truth,
More mighty than the wolf, or bear in rage.
And o’er them all, proud Odin ruled: his sage
Lips e’er spake wisdom, and his eyes peered far
From Asgard’s court to earth’s bourn –
but before
His clan accreted, blossomed, gathered force
And majesty, alone he from his fort
Did contemplate the world – for much he mused
The riddle of his being, and from whence,
Coming to nestle in the vast tree’s boughs,
The realms of elves, of dwarfs, of giants, men,
Of Vanir, fire, high heaven, lowest hell,
And his own Asgard sprang: What was their birth?
What his? For childhood none might he recall,
No sire nor mother – only some dim time
When he with nameless kinsmen twain did rear
The palace walls around him: two great gods
Equal his grandeur, though their faces had
Long fled from recollection.
So, alone,
Gazing from throne-room ’cross the thrice-three lands,
Two ravens gathered he: his Memory
And Thought – two birds which hovered round his crown,
Sat often on his arms; and two wolves brushed
Their flanks against his shins: Freki was one,
Geri the other: greedy mouths of teeth,
Drooling the floor, pacing with restless paw
While black eyes of the birds stared round and round,
Waiting their master’s hest.
* * *
Comes flare of morn,
Orange-pink in east-lands – and the lonely god
Casts sable winged ones, for to spy for nooks
And crevices, those shadowed dens of beasts
And beings hid from Odin’s ranging eyes.
All must the Wise One view, all things must learn!
Fly high, fly swift, through glaring sky of dawn,
Ye searchers for All-Father!
Midgard’s girth
Cross they within a wing’s flap. Jotunheim –
Harsh stone-land, snow-land, giants’ howling home –
They soar o’er next. So many sleet-squalls scream
With witches’ screeching… Avalanches rush,
Flatt’ning the forests; and mischievous trolls
Hurl ice-hunks from the tors: a direful boom
Sounds through the lands upon each boulder-bounce.
Through storm, through frantic clouds, ye ravens, race!
Do seek all sights, and thunderclaps despise!
* * *
Where wave-plain laps the sands with salty slush,
The weather’s drowsy. Here doth Giant Land
Give way to water – home of narwhal’s horn,
The wriggling herrings, fjord-flocks of all kinds,
Sea-sprites, the sirens (beckoners towards death),
And Ran who traps lost sailors in her net –
A vicious giantess, mariner’s bane.
The coast rests silent, sun makes minds to drowse:
Like slumbrous drunkard here dawdles the noon,
And wind disturbs no soul.
The ravens glimpse
Yggdrasil’s root: half under earth, half up,
It coils and loops and twists: a seeming worm
Which runs almost to shoreline. In a crook
Of that tree-anchor, docile jotun snores
With gentle countenance, his hands tucked ’neath
A head half gone to sleep. Scraggly the locks
That blow in breeze; his beard shakes, thick and gray.
Beside him strongly boils a spring of earth:
One thousand bubbles every second wink
Upon its sulph’rous surface. Deep this green
And wondrous pool goes down – none wits to where.
That water, bright as noon sky, hot as milk
From mother’s teat – the waking giant dips
His cupped palms in’t, and drinks a steaming draught.
His face glows pink – nigh scarlet; and his eyes
Close in serene content. The wheeling birds
Observe the pool, the giant – then head home.
* * *
“Lo – in Jotunheim there hops and throbs
A well which thou know’st not of,” Memory
Speaks to All-Father, perched beside his head,
While Thought on other shoulder digs his claws
Into his cloak. “Beside the Great Tree’s root,
“Beyond the frost-trolls’ kingdom, ’midst the mild
And purling zone of coast it boils, unseen
By all, save one: a giant who’s its guard –
Not strong in brawn, weak warder thou mightst grind
To meat with but a blow! Thought and I watched
Him sup from out that spring. How often he
Must quaff from it: digest that magic boon
Of charmèd liquid, drawing subtle sense
And insights from the earth’s profoundest parts –
Hot fountains, which are Fjorgyn’s secret hearts
So many miles deep, tight hissing hells
Which rise but here and there to gush above,
Making cruel blood of fire the blood of blooms,
And sublimating rage to something soft.”
“If thou wish’st knowledge more than what thou hast,
Oh Odin – think to slurp that pulsing font,”
Thought whispers in his ear. “That giant’s face
Who drinks from it (we saw as we did glide)
Doth seem to throughly glow with wisdom’s light:
Deep judgement, understanding of dim age
Before our own, and of the age to come –
As well the nine worlds’ secrets which e’en we,
Thy wingèd watchers, cannot hope to peer.”
And on his throne, the peerless god thinks long,
Stroking his whiskers, while the famished wolves
Pant, pace, and lick their chops.
“Of whence I come,
And what Fate gifts,” saith he, “I’d suffer long
To learn – e’en perish. Never might I stuff
My mind with wealth enow: for aye I’ll seek
New troves of brain-gold – and to buy such hoards
At no price should I balk.”
He casts his eyes
Far ’cross the east-night, waiting for the sun,
Grand candle in the cold, to show that Dag
And steed ascend. Winds trespass through his hall,
Soft-murm’ring things stars spoke in ancient days.
II.
Through thurses’ land of hail and lightning storms
All-Father trudges, hat low o’er his face,
The brim a screen to keep trolls’ enmity
And violence unaroused. A staff he bears,
A gray cloak wraps his frame. The vicious clime
Lasts long in roaring – longer in its fall
To gentle grumbling groan, quick swirl of wind
Divested of its sleet, all sting and chill
Full nullified.
Now coast comes into view
Beyond low hills… the snow thins down to frost,
Breaking beneath his feet. Soon, sand and wave –
Wet curl of salty cold, endless through age –
Display themselves; the rush-sound soothes his soul.
And snaking in and out of beach’s dunes,
One anchor of the Tree-of-Worlds makes plain
That burbling spring’s not far, where Mimir sits
And sips, and slumbers.
In one florid spot
Where snow hath melted, all about bright-blow
Rich flowers of the earth: the cinquefoil,
White buttercup, forget-me-not, and rose,
Pink cranberry, the witch’s thimble too:
Well-watered, shining, clust’ring round one part
Of that great massy root… and Odin hears,
As nigh he creeps, two sounds: a gurgling hiss,
As when a cauldron’s water ’gins to churn
From heat of flame – and also some great wheeze
And snore, as though a beast enormous slept
In place close by.
The great god peeks o’er root,
And spies the napping jotun: slab of flesh
Hairy and wrinkled – not one stitch of clothes
Conceals his beefy self, for aye is’t warm
Nearby that spring, which ever overflows
Its warm nook in the great root’s bend, and runs
Across the sand, toward tide, to mix and meld
With all that vast salt-sloshing. Chest puffs out,
Sighs in, puffs out again as on and on
That troll sojourns in dream-world. Emerald pool
Keeps brewing with hot life, and bubbles rise
Like diamond orbs or beads, popping their stench
Of sulphur at the surface. Hirsute moss
And rust-orange lichen, molds, grow o’er the rocks,
Wild as the jotun’s hair.
All-Father climbs
O’er neck-high root… His feet fall down not far
From giant’s snoozing head – a head nigh twice
As large as his; and twice his height would rise
That jotun if he stood. Long while the god
Doth muse and contemplate, until at last
He jabs the lunk on’s shoulder with his staff;
And, startled, vast one wakes, wond’ring what hath
Disturbed his happy dream.
“Who art thou, troll?”
The gray one asks, full bold, leaning on staff,
Chuckling at how he yawns and rubs his eyes.
“A placid soul thou seem’st – not like thy kin,
Who rage and rave in rocky hinterlands:
Those lands behind me, through which I have braved
To seek thee by this coast, close by this root,
Beside thy wondrous spout… Tell me thy name,
And I’ll tell mine – my many names – and what
I’d ask of thee, oh jotun.”
And the troll
Sits up with wonder, leaning ’gainst the root,
Already taller than the one whose jolt
Retrieved him from his drowsing. “Mimir is
The name all know me by,” he tells the god,
His voice as low as grumbling in the clouds
When grate they ’cross the sky. “A kinsman, true,
Of wild ones – yet in me, thou find’st a wise
And wistful, wispy-haired, white-headed sage
Whose work is well-watching, my wondrous friend
All clad in robes which ripple in the wind.
Some things I know of past… some of what may
Transpire in future times… and also some
Of what haps while we speak, though far away.
Bolthorn my father was, a frosty knave.
And who art thou?”
“Some call me Spear-Shaker,
Some Eagle Head,” saith Odin, “and some else
The Ever-Booming, or the Mighty One.
And Horse-Hair Mustache, Screamer, Blusterer,
The Wanderer, and Broad Hat I’ve been named,
And sometimes Hoary Beard, and sometimes Bear.”
“But tell – who was thy sire?”
“That do I find
My brain bereft of,” sadly sighs the son
Of Unknown. “Not a whit’s within my wit
Of what I was before I took my chair –
The Hlidskjalf, seat which peers from out a tower
Built by myself, and others – two who stand
Vague in my memory… I do not know
How came I to myself – how came this world,
And all within its folds: And this hath sent
My feet upon this quest; for I’ve been told
By two who see, and know, that thou dost keep
Much wisdom in this well, this spout of warmth
Which makes small summer ’midst the eastern snow,
And makes thee drowse, contented.”
Mimir grins
In innocence and mildness, and he looks
Intrigued upon the god. “Oh, ho! Thou’st learnt –
Or guessed – the virtue of my fount, indeed:
That it hath wisdom in’t, and that with sip
One’s made a creature wise. From young in life
This fountain have I guarded, that no lips
Save fortunate mine might taste its sapience
And thus cheapen its secrets… ’Tis my luck
My kinsmen seldom seek to sneak a draught,
For jötnar crave not wisdom – yet I knew
One day or other might some other being
Come ware of what I ward, and test his tongue
At sweet persuasion: Now thou com’st to me,
To reap this boon. ’Tis certain I must share,
Or be o’ercome…
“Yet hon’rable thou look’st –
Now that I search thy face, and spot no sign
Of grasping spirit… Thou’lt agree, I trust,
If wisdom I should grant, to render me
This equal worth: One of thine eyes I ask,
Which looks so far and lucidly through lands,
Tracing the hawk’s flight, or the hart’s long bounds,
Horse-journeying of men, the ship’s straight course
Through whipping, dripping main – thy power t’observe
Weird farthest haunts of dragons, wyverns, wyrms,
All outland savage creatures, savage men,
Where heated mountains seethe at world’s edge
And four dwarfs bear the sky at compass points.
All such I wish to glimpse, and understand –
So grant me squishy organ, white and round:
The right or left, it matters not to me,
So long I see what thou mightst in thy days
Of overwatch… Wilt thou agree to this?
How answer ye?”
All-Father finds his mouth
Bereft of talk – he fidgets, then proclaims:
“A gory payment! Pitiful such loss
Would be for any! There’s no other trade
Would satisfy?”
“Oh no, my squeamish friend,”
Saith Mimir, “there’s naught else! Still one sight-globe
Shall bide with thee, thy vision nigh as strong
As now thou hast… Is not vast mystic view
Worth price I ask? Thou’lt see what time doth hide
As well as distance – both I’ll glimpse as well.
Let’s share, and each be greater… Is’t a deal?”
And High One ponders heavily upon
Proposal… then, without a word, he draws
Deep in a breath. His fingers now he digs
In socket of his left eye – oh, how spurts
That bloody fountain! Red runs down his cheek –
He yowls and groans! The gore squirts on the moss,
A grim dye for that hair… Now in his hand
The bloody eye appears, and Odin moans
Like raging storm wind. Noble face he’s maimed
For sip of water: Into fingers five
Of Mimir goes the orb.
“Now grant me slurp
Hard paid for!” cries the lord of Asgard’s hall.
“Not merely eye itself, but pain like fire
And venom’s love-child is the cost I bear!
May wisdom’s warm balm nullify this sting…
Oh help – mine eye remaining’s closed with tears.”
Plunk goes the organ – Mimir tosses it
Into the spring, for safekeeping; and there
It bobbles, rolls upon the bubbling surge,
Seeking some place to settle… ’til it falls
Upon a little ledge – and there looks up
Through water and the sky, to stare at clouds
That pass above, forever. Mimir joys
At such new treasure, but the great god’s woe
Doth not forget… Troll, smiling, leans to take
Some object from a cache close by his bed
Of moss and blooms.
“Good friend, dwell on thy pain
No more – I have a special horn wherewith
Thou mayst take draught of wisdom,” giant saith
As dips he vessel in the steaming well.
“It Gjallarhorn is called – ’twas made by dwarfs
Of wondrous genius; and by night it gleams
As though crusted with stars: those are the gems
To moonlight sensitive. And what cold Moon
Imparts of silver rays, those gems return,
As generous and bright as light above.”
And Mimir dips the horn in simm’ring pool,
Then bears it to the wounded god, and saith:
“Take in thy hands – drink deep! This magic horn
I’ve not let man nor god drink from before,
And rarely bring to mine own thirsty lips –
For insight overwhelming strikes the brain
When heaping hornful’s swallowed!”
And the god,
Beyond all patience, downs the scalding draught,
Burning his mouth, wetting his cheeks and chin.
He staggers, sighs… then stares, for startled eye
Still in his head, of sudden, sees a sight
Beyond the ocean waves, beyond the clouds…
Beyond e’en time and space: Some vision hath
Enwrapped him in its shroud – its swirling shroud
As black as under-earth, or night, or death.
III.
How many ages back doth Odin’s mind
Fly swiftly, like the eagle, viewing all?
Before Yggdrasil grew, before the worlds
Were nine in number: when lived only two,
And one wide void between: Ginnungagap
’Twas called (yet who was there to call it that?)
Sheer bottomless black bleakness was th’abyss,
And coldness absolute: One might drop down
For time upon vast time, and never sound
That depth of chasm.
Yet there something gleamed
Far northward: Buttes and flats of windblown frost
For leagues unknown, thick mirk, and snarling snow.
Such winter unrelieved did breathe for aye
In Niflheim – that grave that gapes for men –
A nest of woe, souls’ home in later age:
Dominion of the timid wight, not brave,
Where coward and the mediocre man
Aimless their tracks do mark across the ice,
And cold assails those souls, too dull to feel
The sting of sleet, or frost that gnaws the toes.
Eleven rivers wound throughout that world
Of frigid scorn: the Svol, the Slid, the Hrid
And Fimbulthul, the Gunnthra and the Fjorm,
The Gjoll and Leipt, and Sylg and Ylg and Vid:
Curling and worming, sprung from single source
Beneath a blasted rock – white boiling well
Nigh infinitely deep, some fount of Hel,
Hotter than heart of one would cross the sky
In days to come, upon a golden wain,
Bestowing warmth on life… But moon-cold ran
Those streams from origin, and rolled apart
With vigor, reaching fields of farthest ice
And undreamt darksome depths. Those freezing waves,
Jostling thick floes of ice, they rushed their way
Toward cliffs that loomed o’er nothingness… then fell
As sparkling spray off heights – splashed lower ledge,
Creating rainbows, children of that mist –
And fell, and fell, through age and space immense,
E’er down and down, and ever tried to fill
That gap which would not fill.
Yet slowly grew,
Someplace within that pit, dark films of rime
With poison laced – for through the rivers flowed
A ven’mous trace from serpents which did cling
To spring’s heat, coiling, twisting, taking life
From minerals of land; and eons long
Those frost-piles mounted, spreading o’er the void.
* * *
To southward, past expanse of empty space
Would take the swiftest eagle years to cross,
Another region brooded: ’Twas a land
Of fire unflagging, flames like ocean-surf
And burning froth, great pinnacles of rock
Which melted, crumbled, spilled.
Surt there shall sit
In age to come: from far off, rush to reign
As flame-king of the south, upon a throne
Within a molten mountain. None dare say
When born he was, if e’er – or when Death’s thumb
Might snuff his ardent soul. Sparks spit and hiss
From singèd smoky god, and e’er he’ll wait
For warison shall beckon him to field
Of worlds-destroying war. ’Tis Muspelheim
His kingdom shall be named. There is no forge
Roars hotter.
Round the margin of that blaze
A zone of gloom ran: forest without leaves,
But only trunks half-charred, and ashy limbs:
Trees twisted and turned black like roasted men,
A wold of cinders – Myrkwood black and dim,
The home of nothing, through which burning sons
Of Surt shall ride, when trump hath rent earth’s stones
And three cocks crowed.
* * *
In midmost of the void,
Where met the cold and heat, a mild between
Of faintest warmth did touch the creeping frost,
Thawing that hoary crust, extracting drops
Which trembled, trickled, pooled – a yeasty slush
That glittered with the flames’ glow, gathered dense,
And worked its secret spell.
An age did pass,
And form grew in that water – just a lump,
Turning and quiv’ring, taking nutriment
From serpents’ teeth-dew, bane of weaker flesh.
And soon bloomed legs and arms, and budded head:
A fuzzy pate, with rolling brutal eyes
Lodged in the skull-bone. This the first of all
The jötnar was, hight Ymir, wicked brute:
A beast in man’s form, broad as oceans, tall
As heaven over earth – and yet against
The lands of flame and frost, he seemed as small
As infant set amidst dark plains immense.
In wetness writhed he, opened eyes, and felt
His blank surroundings – then in peace he drowsed
Across the eons, snoring in those winds
From Niflheim, and breathing out a breeze
Far into emptiness, unconscious still
Of aught but that he was… Strong southern heat
Played o’er his flesh, and pricked a salt-thick sweat
From out his pores.
From armpits there emerged,
Born of that sudor, two more of his race:
Male giant, and a female. Meanwhile grew
Of union of the legs of Ymir, one
Who six heads sported: this a frost-troll was,
Grim splutt’ring horror – and as soon as sprung
From huge thing’s flesh, did scramble towards the murk
Of rimy wastes, babbling, a choir obscene,
Mutt’ring its lusts and loathings.
Still flowed down
The icy spray from cliffs, and constant met
South’s heavy calor… Ere long, in the gap
A pink-gray heifer rose, colored like dawn
When rises it from rain clouds: second child
Of sparks and snow. Audhumla was her name,
As vast as Ymir, but nowise a beast
Of evil instinct. Kicked she in her slime,
Her birth-damp cradle; and with snorting huffs,
She rose up on her hoofs, then clopped away
To Ymir and his offspring, to give suck
To hungry family… But soon was spent
Her store of nutriment, for famished grew
That milk-cow.
’Midst the snow she found the salt
Her tongue craved – so she licked, and mineral
Of tingling taste soon transformed in her gut
To udder-drink for giants: Four streams poured
To feed that giant-folk, who presently
Did teem in dozens, hundreds: four milk creeks
E’er slurped that hideous brood.
* * *
Now what was found,
One eve, where cow’s tongue supped? A tuft of hair
Emerged, by patient hours, on salt slope,
All slick and spiked with cow-spit. By next night
A head appeared, and in another day
All of the body. Thus the first god came,
Tall handsome man-form: hardy Buri, strong
As ten trolls’ force. His hair, a pure blonde swell
Stirred in the frost-gusts, and from brow shone forth
Gold light and sacredness – of blood distinct
From evil Ymir’s was he.
Yet a mate
Out of the salt Audhumla never licked –
No leman for god’s love, however high
His hopes did run… And so a blood debased
His children’s veins must channel. Jotun-maid,
Far handsomer than kin, did Buri take
To wife, in secret, far from where her folk
Might spy how they consorted.
Bor was son
Who issued: swiftly growing, and his light,
Though lesser than his sire’s, yet beamed bold,
A white-gold radiance… but in his breast
Some wicked urges surged, warring with love
His father had implanted: love of good,
Of calm, and beauty.
Second fall, alas,
To weaker rays soon followed: Bor did sire,
By Bestla, Bolthorn’s daughter, three strong sons:
Vili, and Ve, and Odin. Ragged glow
Of quarter-pureness wrapped them – though such light
Still dazzling would appear to mortal eyes
Of beings yet to come. A troll-blood rage
Did struggle in their souls: an equal match,
Or nearly, for the kindness, noble grace
That came down from their fathers.
* * *
With the bairns
And reckless brats of jötnar never played
Those three youths. Ugly, savage, drooling, cruel
And ruthless race they hated – tribe which slew
The weakest of their kind, and oft did wound
One ’nother on a whim.
Bor’s sons lapped up
Audhumla’s creamy yield, and stout in brawn
Waxed wondrously, a trio to surpass
In strength all giant beings… Yet with time,
Those deities were ware, that throng of trolls
Would overwhelm prodigiously their race
Handsome but few. All things would slide to ill,
All beauteous blood dilute to nothingness,
And evil, scarce alloyed, reign in the wastes
Of darksome gap… Why had, they asked, a line
That loved the good, from this dark cradle sprung,
If not t’oppose these evil, brutal ones,
Dwellers in shadows? This they mulled and turned,
Conversing what to do, in secret den,
Wond’ring if fate indeed urged bloody work –
Until at last those three agreed their plan,
Then slept a sleep full resolute and grim,
Waiting the morning.
* * *
Ymir felt the blow
Upon his hairy brow, and loosed a roar
Did crack the glaciers of the northern ice.
A clod of frost the three had heaved at head,
And rivers red ran down the giant’s face,
His neck and shoulders. Odin on his own
Dashed giant in his ribs with second clod,
While Ve a leg did crack, and Vili broke
The jotun’s arm. Great pain and injury
Cast down the massive one, while still his howls
Ran through the endless shadows, and awaked
His sons who supped at milk. Still god-youths mauled
That thrashing body, striking with their fists,
And icicles for maces, boulders too
As huge as mountains – and blood ’gan to well
Out o’er the barren land, staining their toes,
Lapping at ankles.
All of Ymir’s sons,
Those groans and cries pursuing, soon appeared
Above the hills and ridges; and they guessed
Who howling was, and why – they rushed to aid
Their shrieking father. Blood so copious
From every wound went rushing, and yet still
More gashes made the gods, striking with rage,
Compounding gory deluge. Tides of gore
Now lifted jötnar and the gods alike
As Ymir’s life expired, and his soul
Vanished to nowhere…
Foaming waves and flows
Took up the giant-horde, and cast them high
Then down, within its troughs: they bobbed and spun
And flailed upon that swell. The air swirl’d thick
With spindrift-gore, and groans. Upon the corpse
Which floated, Vili, Ve, and Odin clomb
While poor trolls splashed and drowned.
Only a pair
Of baleful race rode out the bloody wave:
Bergelmir and his wife, who clung upon
A broken forearm of the massive brute.
The blood rolled round in currents, sloshed and poured
Beyond all sight, and eerie eddies moaned
The deaths of trolls who perished in their depths;
And now a strong stream pulled the pair far from
The greater part of Ymir, towards vast dark.
The two moved ’neath a bluish-blackish sky,
Between primordial forms, strange shapes halfway
’Twixt real and dreamèd: scenes so vague, unfirm,
As though waiting their moulder – else, their end
Once ended sleep of dreamer… At the edge
Of that great gap they lingered for an age
And longer, paddling through the red-black swell,
No light to guide them, save that distant glow
Where three gods perched on Ymir.
Liquid life
In time subsided to a rippling pool,
Neck-high… chest-high. To midmost of the blood
In grisly gap those gods floated the corpse,
On fluid pushing that vast continent,
Then pondered long on what to fashion of
That mass of flesh, and bones, and hair, and brains.
IV.
What next doth Odin glimpse in dizzy trance?
What further sweep and scale – what primal births
In paradise infernal, blissful hell
Which long he hath forgotten? Memories
Now mob upon him – knowledge he had lost
Beneath time’s silt like bones, a timeless rest,
Just as the stuff of infancy doth leave
The mind of Midgard-man.
The brothers talked
Of what to frame from corpse colossal – fair
And gracious world was wanting, this they knew:
A chance for beauty, hope of harmony,
Stronghold where goodness might hold evil off –
The setting of a struggle.
Flesh they changed
By rolling, sculpting, molding, into earth,
And blood they so enchanted that it took
In time the look of oceans: blue and white,
A surging tide, made calm by spoken spells,
Soon undulating softly… Now the teeth
Of Ymir, gods made boulders and small stones,
And strewed them far and wide. His skeleton’s
Huge pieces, Bor’s sons heaped as tow’ring peaks
And ridges, rocky citadels; then hair
The brothers planted – this the grass became,
And forests, and all green things: all which spread
Their roots beneath the ground.
His visions now
Show Odin how great skull became the sky,
That hollow half-sphere, capped upon the world,
And how the gods threw brains to form the clouds,
Hurling them high – these drifted far above,
Changing their texture, solid now no more:
Light wispy white wool-tufts, which once held wit,
But now sailed on the upper blue like ships –
Boats of the welkin.
Sparks from Muspelheim,
Hot in the palm, the three gods also snatched,
And tossed high, too; and still those dwell aloft,
Glimm’ring as stars, bright necklaces of night.
* * *
Now from the giant’s flesh crept wriggling worms:
Foul maggots, feasting on the corpse-turned-land –
A sight to make them retch, the sons of Bor,
Who once again conferred, and now worked change
With never-tiring hands, plus subtle speech
Of magic’s influence: Each maggot’s face
Grew beard, gained nose and eyes, and straight became
Like countenance of giant or of god,
Or like of man to come; and every brain
In head of worm gained reason. Dext’rous hands
And stocky legs then issued: no more crawled
A mass of worms, but, naked all about,
So many little men crept with their limbs
All o’er the earth they once had battened on,
Gazing upon themselves, and each on each,
Wond’ring how they’d been born.
The starlight stung
Harsh in their eyes, so caves and dens they sought,
But too much crowded those so shallow pits,
So many were they – hence they ’gan to dig
To make more dwelling for them: and thus ’gan
The dwarf race in their delving.
Kobolds carved
A kingdom under earth as time stretched on,
With pick and shovel mining for the gem,
As once with mouths they mined huge Ymir’s meat.
And so a wide domain spread ’neath the hills
And rocky mountains: Nidavellir hight,
A bastion for those craftsmen, tunnel-realm,
Dark workshop-world where wondrous things appeared –
The glorious torque and arm-ring, pendants gemmed,
Bangles and bucklers wrought exquisitely,
Charms, crowns, and armor. Only flames and coals
Gave light in dwarven dens, also the sparks
Like shooting stars, which flew when hammer fell
Upon the anvil. Black place, flick’ring red,
That eerie home was, fitting for a folk
Disliked the upper glow. So mumbling men
Did labor endlessly, and metal shaped,
Producing awesome works and winking wealth:
Treasures like dreamish objects, things which men
In later days would lust to hold and clutch.
A hoard of these no race nor age surpassed
Was heaped for Hreidmarr, king of that squat race,
Who never stirs from throne, but e’er admires
Those riches piling round him: dragon-like
Broods he upon his treasures, soul of wealth,
The silver, golden monarch.
* * *
Up above,
Ere most the maggot-men gained shelter, four
Unlucky gnomes the three gods plucked by neck
As for the dark they scrambled. These they placed
At four points round the world’s edge, to uphold
The giant’s skull, lest shift or slip it might.
And names they gave those dwarfs: Nordri, Sudri,
Austri, and Vestri. E’er must they support
That canopy wide-spanning… until doom,
Calamity, and downfall wreck all wights
And plunge all things once more in blackest dim.
* * *
Meantime did creatures grow out of the land,
Impelled by will of Odin, who much wished
Inhabitants for scenes so grand and good:
The deer and bear, wolf, coney, and the dog,
The ox and mouse and boar; and winged things rose
Like feathered spirits out from thickest leaf
To dwell on tree-tops, twigs, and pinnacles,
And piece their nests, and rear their chirping broods.
And Ymir’s blood was womb for swimming things
Which grew from embryo: the shark and whale,
Walrus and seal, great kraken, wee sardine,
Perch, sprat, and herring, and all gilly ones
Which angler’s net might catch, who flop upon
The boat floor ’til they’re dead, destined to grace
The serving platter in man’s hungry hall.
V.
One day, upon the beach, silent and long,
Where rinsing combers wash the sands, the gods
Strode in a merry mood, content to view
Those tracts of wave and earth they’d labored long
To fashion. Neither sun nor moon yet gleamed
From lofty sweep; only the haloed stars
Then watched from high.
What found Vili and Ve
And Odin on the shore? Two trunks of trees
Long leafless, flotsam passed along by hands
Of stretching waves: an ash and elm. Thus said
Great Odin: “Oh my brothers, let us make
A further race from these – not skulkers in
The lightless caverns, but some fairer race
Who wish for light. Like unto us they’ll be,
Handsome and tall… though rather less in strength,
And of a middling life-length; but we’ll watch
To guard their weal.”
And Odin breathed on logs
His life-spirit, and brother Ve exhaled
The boons of sight and hearing. Vili next
Inspir’d the trunks with wits and fragile hearts:
A tender love for kin and family,
And sense of beauty, whether found in song,
Or poem, or lover, or the starry curve,
Or groves upon the mountains, or the snow
As rests it on dark tree limbs.
Ask was man,
And Embla woman; and in midst of world
Those two were placed by gods, within a copse:
Placed delicately, set by gentlest hands
To form a family ’midst the silver light
Of ceaseless starlight; and the forest beasts
With black eyes gazed upon the coupling pair,
All curious but timid.
Embla grew
In midriff – swelled so often, soon there played
Exhausting multitude amidst that grove,
Too many for those parents; and the fruits
The darling daughter, strapping son consumed,
That offspring growing hardy. Spread apace
Those scions ’cross the forests, and did found
In time their daughter-families, which in turn
Like wildflowers spread their kind.
And Embla died,
And Ask; and men and women gained the spear,
The brand of flames, and taught themselves the arts
Of hammer and the loom, and what roots served
For medicine and healing. Buildings rose,
The hut and hall, in time the castle-keep,
Stone tower and wall. The raucous horse was tamed,
Wheat seed sown in the furrows, milk-cow milked;
And man ’came king of his own middle-world
Perched ’twixt the rim and blaze.
* * *
A long age spent
Bergelmir and his wife upon that arm
Fall’n off from Ymir, cold and lost, alone,
Floating in outer shadow, twirled about
By whirlpools of the main. The new stars shone
Upon the wave-plain, but no land disclosed
Forever, and e’en longer – until chance,
Blind chaos of the surge, did veer them near
A shore full barren. Giants with their hands
Paddled to refuge, and they wondered much,
Once on the sands, how rich and various
The beasts and flora grew. No men they saw,
And nothing knew of race the gods had made,
And so thought lands their own.
In short ensued
Multiplication second, far from seed
Of Ask and Embla – but few of that race
Grew wiser much than brutes: most dwelt in caves,
That savage giant breed, hunted the hart
And rabbit with the club, and struggled much
A steady flame to nurture.
At last man
Encountered rival race, and Midgard saw
Fell sweep of war – the burning house, the fort
Blasted by jotun’s mace; and ogres supped
On helpless children. Much the stronger proved
Bergelmir’s breed by dint of stature huge,
And would have all Ask’s children slain, except
The three gods saw, and acted: Eyebrows of
Primordial troll placed they as firm stockade,
Protecting men it mewed at midst of land,
Consigning trolls without – most towards the east
Where snowstorms frequent blew, all wintertime
And wind that hateful waste. And so returned
Mankind to peace, while jötnar on the marge
Stewed in their wrath, wrapped furs against the cold,
And nurtured hate towards those who them confined.
VI.
In blizzard-land there thrived a giant-maid
Whose eyes glowed darkly – hair, as black as cave,
Shone comely to the suitor: Nott yclept,
A dusky beauty, delicate of bone,
Fragile of cheek, not much like rest of race,
Big-boned, revolting. Husbands fair enough
Of feature married she: the first begat
A son named Aud, who wealth did seem to gain
Without much effort. Second husband bred
A daughter, Jord, who melded with the rocks
And trees and dust and herb – sometimes she seemed
The earth itself, sometimes a woman dressed
In peplos all of green, whose hair outspread
Like wild grass and the groves, while she reclined.
And lastly, Delling sowed the seed that waxed
To be the handsome Dag, who shone like gold,
With glowing crop of hair, more lustrous-bold
Than even Hreidmarr’s treasures.
Odin viewed
The mother, and the third son, each unlike
The other as the star is from the dark,
Though both did strike his soul. Seemed they like swan
And raven – or two poles which fixed the world
’Twixt utmost height and depth.
“To gaze upon
Such fairness,” quoth the god, “always deserves
Poor toiling, sweaty man, who through his time
Doth chop, and forge, and sow, without an end,
E’er growing wise, but wearier… Nor should
Monot’nous glow halfhearted all time shine
Upon the bird and animal – no change,
No mystery suggested by the night,
No day-beams, giving symbol to the good…
Nor is it fitting for us fashioners
Of all this continent, to dwell in gloom,
Who for an age abode in darksome void
While Ymir yet reigned lord.
“Let Dag be placed
Within a car hooked to a dazzling colt,
To soar above us – and let Nott proceed
In her own chariot, once Dag hath touched
West rim of Midgard: for an equal term
Bid we that she shall hover, year in full,
As doth her son; and darkness which she brings,
Her swarthy beauty, shall compel to rest.”
And so those two were placed; and so they passed
As they were bidden – blotting out the stars
With greater light, or dampening their glow
So that the sky turned black. The son grants cheer,
The mother balm of slumber after strife
And labor of the day.
Frost-Mane, Nott’s horse,
Doth ever pant and foam while running high,
Bedewing earth below, so that by morn,
All decked with pearly drops, the grass stalks gleam,
The leaves and fronds. To Shining-Mane was strapped
Two bellows, tucked beneath his forward legs,
To wheeze as muscles squeezed them, blowing warmth
Off from that beast, so that he should not faint.
* * *
Oh Beauty! For the mortals whom thou deign’st
To grace, art thou a trouble, or a boon?
Of race of Ask, two offspring once went dressed
In all thy gifts: a daughter, Sol her name,
And son called Mani. E’en more handsome than
The sky-set giants grew these, and the gods’
Hearts caught were by those darling cherub-ones,
Fair bright-faced youths. To let them hide was sin –
So snatched were they, while father called for them,
Heartsick with loss.
With Dag was seated Sol,
And by Nott’s side was Mani: each doth gleam
In heaven half the day – one greater light,
And one less bright and hot.
Now what was giv’n
For Sol’s possession? Chilly targe to pose
’Twixt brilliance and dull earth: cold Svalinn shields
Green lap of Jord, and whale’s home, from that fire
Would scorch ’em into steam. Bright maiden’s warmth
Doth spill around the rim, letting heat reach
Man’s world in temperance.
And Odin sees
That Mani hath two playmates in his car:
Hjuki and Bil, whom he did grab to him
E’en as he was abducted: From the well
Of Byrgir were they strolling, bearing home
A water-cask upon a pole – when straight
The moon-child caught them, and compelled their fate.
* * *
Whence loped yon dark shapes, bearing towards the sun’s
And moon’s fair wagons? Two tongues dripped with greed
To gobble horses, drivers, and the cars
In dashing orbit: giant-wench’s brood
Those wolves were, snarling-born in Iron Wood,
And still they stalk their prey. Hati the moon
Is bent on, slav’ring for that destined night
He’ll glut and gorge, and Skoll seeks golden orb
With equal relish. Paws race, eyeballs shine,
Teeth glint with lust to tear. Now faster, ye
Who slap with reins the horses’ backs! Dire fate
May be outrun – who knows? Oh, dare to try!
* * *
Mid-morning of the world’s birth, and the dew
Hrimfaxi snorted trembled on the blades
High-growing, and the heather: Crystal spheres
Of quiv’ring liquid, soon as sprinkled, bred
New shapes, as once the thaw of middle gap
Assembled Ymir.
Fays and fairy folk
Those children of the drops became, that kind
So dandelion-delicate – for they
Might vanish in a trice, and to man’s eye
Render themselves as naught. From wat’ry wombs
Those sprites did slither; then among the groves
They kingdom founded, perched on bourn of real
And make-believe.
Shoelaces tangled tight
And milk that’s curdled are their handiwork,
Those mischief-doers. Sleek snails are their steeds,
Or flittermice or humblebees when they
Need fly their pranks to humans, or shall switch
The infant for a changeling. Venture not
Upon their bower – oh, ne’er shalt thou return!
VII.
From seed-strewn turf, in springtime’s coolish day,
An ash did grow with vigor – halted not
In straining towards the azure. Branches stretched
O’er mere and mountain, fjord and gorge and spit,
While roots reached down towards caverns of the cold
Black halls of dwarfs.
One barky anchor wormed
Beyond the Ymir-earth, beyond great sea
To nest in Niflheim, far deep in heat
Of cauldron-spring from which the rivers flowed;
And there did wyrms and dragons gnaw upon
That sweet-tooth tendril, taking nutriment
And swelling slowly huge.
And Odin sees
Harsh sons of Grave-Wolf, Goin and Moin, who hiss
For tree-vein juice, while Twister winds about
His rooty prey, and Sleep-Bringer gains fat
From bark and sap.
Then god views Nidhogg drink
The most of all those serpents: plump and stretched
His scaly form doth wax, a scarlet snake
Who bides and broods, and ever flits his eyes
Across the eons.
Now and then a squirrel
Doth visit Nidhogg in his dungeon’s grime
Of poison and warm well-slime; and he breathes
Those insults which another’s told to him
Within the king-drake’s ear – then vicious words
The viper pays him for that message brought,
His maledictions casting up the tree
By Ratatosk to eagle, who sits perched
On highest limb of all… A falcon rests
Upon that great bird’s beak, and lists as well
To worm’s contempt, while breezes pass through leaves,
Those cold winds which brush Gimle, utmost home
Of sky’s chill spirits.
And forever sighs
That ash of ages. Four harts strip its skin
With nibbling teeth, and chew its leaves and twigs
Beneath the shade.
Some think the tree shall sway,
But crash not, come the flood, or lightning’s stroke.
But something else, sometimes, vague dreams portend
In troubled night: a nemesis, a foe
Of feasting flame – that gobbling, black’ning burn.
* * *
Nestled the other roots of Yggdrasil
Not far from parent-trunk. One swiftly squirmed
Deep into giant-realm (that is the one
Mimir doth slumber by), coiling round pond
Of bubbling, bursting heat, as though it sensed
That hot spring’s mysticism, while the third
High in the vapors curl’d:
What was that realm
Unglimpsed before, e’en by the gods, which stretched
From cloud to drifting cloud? Such splendid tract,
Preserve of holiness, where all that swelled –
The berry, fruit, and blossom – blighted not,
Untouched by rot, disease, or atrophy
Which ruled beneath. That final root put down
Into a laund there, where the proud pines crowned
So many knolls and hills. And where it dug
Under the earth’s skin, and back out, and in,
A third well trickled, spurted, and gushed forth
To raise a pool which drowned forget-me-nots,
The buttercups, and roseroots. Currents steamed
And burbled with a magic heat beneath,
Which shall not die, at least until that doom
Which seemeth far as corpse-realm.
“Brothers, let’s
Raise mansion in this country,” Odin said,
“Close by this root and wellspring – hall for songs
And sumptuous cauldron-contents, and for mead:
Home for ourselves, our children, wives, and best
Of Midgard’s heroes (after those have left
Their flesh in mortal soil). Wonderful
These sky-lands shine, and peaks here nearly scratch
The skull we raised… And let us build a bridge
Between this floating world and Midgard’s grounds
With tools and wizardry: a shimm’ring path
Of colors such as seen in rainstorm’s wake:
Creation’s strongest arch! That pass we’ll take
(When harmony of seat divine doth pall)
To visit men’s affairs.”
Then Bor’s strong sons
With prelude not set on such massive task:
A rainbow hamm’ring, and a house immense
Upraising by their muscles and their spells,
Hewing thick timber beams and boards for walls
And floors which made Valhalla.
But I reach
The eve of Odin’s vision: Gloaming falls
Upon his revelation’s ling’ring day;
And now comes night for wisdom – sleep, not death,
Of secret-learning. Swooning still, the god
Lifts up toward surface of his mind again.
VIII.
A chirping murmur – Odin hears the birds
Chat in the nooks and hollows of the root,
And hares scratch in the sod. On’s back he lies,
Subdued and silent, staring at dusk’s sky –
Pale, pink, and purple. Mimir lounges near
That pond that’s never still – he turns to see
All-Father standing up.
“Forsooth, I’ve viewed
All I’d forgotten, and all things what happed
Ere came I to this world: Ancient crevasse
And fell things born within… then war of blood
Waged by me on the coarse race, and by kin…
And feats of years untold to structure this,
This cosmos, all about – worked by these hands
I see e’en now, before me, with the eye
Remaining me: wrinkled, and calloused with
Scars, warts, and moles. Could such this ample earth
Have shaped, as child shapes clay? Indeed, I’m old…
What seemed the spring is autumn – dawn is dusk,
And child’s freshness is decrepitude.
But why must vigor fall from earliest days?
If I’ve raised life, why not might I reclaim
That power of youth – a new-sprung, lively force?
“I trow could be some greater being dwells
Above my head: some keeper of this age,
Accounting deeds, deceases, dramas, dreams,
Deceits and downfalls – all those direful drips
Of candle wax as lower sinks the flame.
O’er death I’ll fret not… Oh, where bide those souls
Who two parts of a triple spirit seemed:
Vili and Ve? Do sleep they in the ground –
Or in some part far-flung divide their sway
O’er newer men, more perfect, whom they’ve shaped?
Whether I’ll meet with them again – oh tell,
Good jotun, if thou know’st; I’ve paid the wage.”
Mimir is drowsy – late day sags his lids
Like rich mead would. “More wisdom? Little I’ve
To grant: thou’st had thy fill, and horn is drained.
Thou art not old at all – that much I’ll tell,
For world’s yet young, and thou know’st thou’lt not die
Ere horrid dreams turn true… All what thou’st seen
Is all thou’lt have – thou oughtst be thankful for
Such bounty for mere eye!”
Deep sighs the god
Of many names, and saith: “Alas! Then, too,
My fate stays veiled from me – I also meant
To ask how I might end, if that I should:
Whether my reign, and that of sons, might last
Perpetual – or whether cataclysm
Bide for us in the twilight. This I most
Was keen to take as jewel for my hoard
Of thought-things… Not one word from thee? Too soon,
This cease of wellspring’s flow! I sense a doom,
But know not if it comes or soon or late –
Or if for aye one might delay such fall.”
And silent Mimir sits like passive sphinx,
All patient, pensive, and on’s face he dons
His mask of mirth, and tells crestfallen god:
“Just dwell on what I’ve shown: ’tis rich enough
Mind-treasure for delight of museful soul…
Think on those dreams – no more thine eye hath bought.
The harp in hall, and hearth, and mug of mead
In Asgard beckon: Ache shall they beguile
To slumber in thy soul, and towards thy bed
Conduct thy flagging frame… Be off! ’Tis far,
Thy lonely chamber. Think but how it grew,
This lonesome world – and then think where thou shalt
Find wife, to fill thine halls with children’s cheer.”
* * *
Halfway to slumber, yawning jotun peeps
Open one eye, while he reclines, to watch
Good father-god set off across the hills
Glitt’ring with snowfall.
Of thy fate, I keep
A certain knowledge in my skull – but thou
Shalt not soon learn what I know: vision black
And blood-swoll’n, seizing all wights in its maw.
For long thou’lt thrive, not knowing: no despair
Shall bleed thy spirit, nor thy family’s hopes
For joy and love, and lasting age of peace,
E’en while the creatures cruel, of chaos, near.
*
*
*
(illustration by Oluf Olufsen Bagge)
*