*
I sing of one who for her love doth search:
A maid in freshness, a dame in grace and power,
Who from the stings of loneliness doth hurt,
And lets her grief pour from her through the hours:
Like blood drip those tears, red gold upon the cheeks,
Wet amber sorrow of a lovelorn maid,
In Folkvang’s beauty and bloom-season’s heat,
In Sessrumnir hall while the blossom fades:
A head upon soft herbs, or the cushion’s lap;
Day hath no music, and the night no rest.
Sweet Vana-dame weeps for the god she lacks,
And clutches her daughters to her heaving breast.
Gersemi and Hnoss in their child-voices meek
To mother say: “Why take ye not to your bed?
More comfort comes not with the more tears thou weep’st;
No solace arrives with the droplets ye shed.”
*
* * *
*
“Where roamest thou, Od,” speaks Freyja in sleep,
“Through willows and bracken of brain’s hazy lands?
I watch thee aslumber on beds of the leeks,
On shores of the oceans, the desolate strands.
“Thou sailest in silence, thy boat knocks the wind;
The willows that droop brush thine eyes, that they close.
Thou passest to shores far from virtue and sin –
No rain bathes thy hair, and no mud stains thy toes.
“The star-maids who live in a realm that is pure,
Of comets’ cold chimes and the jingling orbs,
Descend with their rapture on meteor’s blur,
But nothing do share with us such astral joys.
“Where castles stand vain on a glorious earth,
And fat cherries glow with the dew’s nutriment,
There him that I seek rests beyond boon and hurt
In a cradle of crags, where the stone land is rent.”
*
* * *
*
A feathery suit, magic costume of speed
Girl dons in the dawn; out her window she’s off –
Now falcon-shape zips o’er the swains and the sheep
Who yet rouse for their day with a bleat or a yawn.
Towards heaven’s north edge flies the goddess love-sick,
While the sun like a furious god doth arise –
Oh, the clouds now his furious fires do kiss!
In the gold flames of morning they crumple and die.
To the margin, world’s brim, over farthest-flung wilds
Where waddles the blemmye, with face in his chest,
And hoppeth the monopod, isle to isle:
Such lands searches Freyja to spot where Od rests.
What rushing sound lives past yon curtain of dark
Like the anger of waters, like planets’ harsh sighs?
A figure of plumes, proud-enthroned in the stars,
A giant that hath taken eagle’s stern guise
Doth beat his wings ever; the air rushes swift –
High heart of the welkin, grand pump of the winds!
On fast-flying gale Freyja lifts, and she lifts
So far from the land! Now unsteady, she spins
And downwards is hurtling! The damp earth receives,
Like a bed doth the sleeper, the goddess who faints.
In vegetable arms through the morn Freyja dreams;
And the wilderness whispers as evening grows late.
*
* * *
*
A tickling awakes her, as though tiny feet
On belly and thighs, breasts and forehead cavort.
Upon scenes of revelry Freyja’s eyes peep:
The fairies dance ’top her, at tumbling sport.
Those delicate ones tiptoe through purest black,
An evening-world rich and deep as guilty love.
At banquet they berries eat; juicy lips smack;
The dribblings they wipe off with tunic and glove.
Like paper lamps held in invisible hands
Move winged fays through the murk – scarlet, gold, white, and green;
And the inky groves sparkle as odd beings prance
In a ring around toadstools, and strange carols sing:
We’ve come by mice and snail
Over slith’ry sneaking trail,
And we haunt this heart of forest that no mortal’s ever spied.
In a circle do we whirl
As we hide from every churl…
Oh dear stranger, in what horrid heap of feathers dost thou lie!
Art thou bird or art thou damsel?
What a wreck amidst the bramble!
Oh come merry make with us, we light-foot wights who are so shy!
We have games and we have dinners,
And we’re no more saints than sinners
As we revel in these nooks by night, in wilderness, for aye!
Their robes are stitched petals, their caps walnut shells,
And trumpet-flowers sound they to welcome the night.
Now the folk run and stumble up hillock, down dell,
As the wingèd ones cycle in hornet-like flight.
A wind casts them round like a swirl of leaves –
They bounce off the mushrooms; and dandelions blow
Their wispy white whiskers to make Freyja sneeze –
She speaks, of a sudden: “Oh pray, would ye know,
Dear fairyland spirits, where roameth a god
Like one entranced by a vague sleepwalking wish,
Or fair, promised vision? Where wanders my Od?
Oh tell me of my sweetheart ye’ve caught a glimpse!”
The Alfar respond: “Yea, we’ve seen whom you mean:
Through our dim forest passed he, sad trooping and slow.
By magic sense ken we he’s taken to sea:
On shifting brine-currents he flounders and flows.”
*
* * *
*
She sails on a storm wind; gray atmospheres swell.
Her boat cuts through island-chains white, gold, and pink.
Horizon’s a nowhere where waterspouts well;
The breeze is a breath whisp’ring things indistinct.
A dew from the deep heavens Freyja’s cheeks lave.
All naked she’s now; the froth kisses her breasts.
Maid sighs at the gunwale and watches the waves –
Her amber tears mingle with rushing sea-depths.
’Twixt sleeping and waking she passeth so oft,
And welkin’s twin faces cede places by turns.
Oh where does Od voyage? Right soon might I drop
Off world’s edge, thinks goddess, far down where flames burn.
What spies our sad maiden so far o’er the main?
A ladder in mid-air – most surely a dream!
Its lowest rung touches the rolling sea-plain,
Its top’s in the cumulus, not to be seen.
Soon hand over hand… The barque’s drifting away;
And far ’bove the billows the lonesome dame climbs.
No longer she’s washed by the lashing sea-spray,
But enters the layer of frenzied sun’s shine.
That sun is a face living ever in mirth;
And moon’s countenance keeps e’er mournful and triste.
But past all emotion’s the high realm o’er earth:
A cold upper depth where all sadness has ceased.
Light laughs surround damsel – the ladder leads through
Vertiginous haunts where the cloud-fays abide;
And dark tones arise as she enters rich blue,
And passes through holes in the spheres crystalline.
A palace of porphyry – tomb-like this rests
Where rungs find their end – in four walls, portals four
Abruptly slap shut – yet in one, maid does catch
The sight of a man as he passes indoors.
Like a fish from the waves leaps the goddess’s heart,
For her darling’s that figure, she’s sure… nearly so.
Like a love-bolt to breast, to the castle she darts;
Past the door – naught but ladders, a maze high and low,
Confusion’s true mansion. Dame climbs for a day
To regions of balconies, bridges, and steps.
Down hallways her sad footfalls echo away;
Her sweetheart’s name’s swallowed by infinite depths.
*
* * *
*
In darkness a witch bides, a woman of gems:
The Princess of Heaven, a beauty who’s jeweled.
At hall’s center rests she, sans lover, sans friend,
A lily that grows on a dark, distant pool.
Her lips are a pouting rose cooled in the dew;
Her heart is the gate betwixt heaven and hell.
The lion’s brain hath she, and corse of the ewe;
Od keeps she in thrall in mysterious cell.
In chamber as black as the Niflheim pit
She slumbers on cushions, and dreams that she views
Poor demons and ghouls that she’s blown from her lips
Run with maddening lust all her vast mansion through.
And Freyja implores, “Oh ye Queen of the Sky,
If ye hear me in sleep, lend your pity to one
Who, for lack of her friend and her dearest, shall die,
That dearest ye trap in this house o’er the sun.”
And goddess, aghast, sees the ghouls climb the stairs,
And the devils run backwards through bridges and gates;
But a breath of strange consciousness stirs in the air,
And a voice from the depths of the palace proclaims:
“My life dies and dies, and I grow to old age
Ever surely; e’en high ’bove the orbs, nothing lasts.
The figure who waits in the dark must be paid;
The gobbler who dines through the night-hours grows fat.
“At center of earth, ’neath the roots and the wells,
In a black place forgotten, a lake swirls around,
Stirred up by a fish, glutt’nous monster that’s swelled
With the corpses of sailors who’ve on the sea drowned
“And drained with the tides to the cisterns beneath.
Now an island peeks forth ’midst that fish’s round road,
And on it there spring without number the leeks;
But of primroses, only a sole floret grows.
“Who eats of that blossom, youth shall not forsake,
Nor vigor – at least, ’til the gods march to war.
Retrieve me that bloom from the midst of the lake,
And the god whom you love so, once more shall be yours.”
*
* * *
*
As cold as a corpse lies the land at maid’s feet,
While all doleful’s the sky with its lachrymose drips.
The chill of the earth bites with winter-sharp teeth,
And the jaws of the winds dame’s bare ruddy neck nip.
Beyond the vast wildwoods, behind the last tor,
Three crows glumly perch on a dead yew tree’s arm.
In grayness and wet e’er they watch o’er the door
That leads to the lands of the soul’s lasting harm.
A smoke from the cavern bleeds into the fogs,
And the crows eye the damsel; six yellow orbs glow
Like flames of a candle tree; Freyja hastes on
To cave-mouth, for primrose that blooms far below.
“Oh halt ye!” croaks one of the black-feathered brood,
“Why passest thou down through the threshold we keep,
Ye golden-haired maiden, all nubile and nude?
Oh answer us, or your sweet flesh we shall eat!”
And damosel speaks of that immortal flower
Can thrive without sun – and of whale what guards
Such boon deep in under-land: “List, ye birds dour:
A queen hath my love trapped in chamber as far
“Above our heads as blows fresh blossom below,
That prize I must purloin to ransom my make.
I pray you, oh suffer one o’erwhelmed by woe –
I pray you, let pass me, for love and life’s sake!”
The crows, they confer in their cackling sounds,
’Til the damsel they answer: “Oh pass on, fair girl,
To filch that bloom’s magic – but if you’re not drowned,
Or eaten by fish in that dark lake that swirls,
“With us lot ye must share your fair little flower
Upon your return – three wee petals for three –
That we might put off our appointed death-hours,
And p’raps live as long as the wisest yew tree;
“For much do we wish to see worlds, and time,
And witness the gods once the lands have grown old –
When Aesir in battle with nemeses die,
And pass from the blaze to yon high realms of gold…
“So share, pretty one, what you find in th’abyss,
For wisdom we’d have, to be equal with thee.
Your eyes sure we’ll gouge if you rob not that fish –
We’ll love as thou lovest, and see what thou seest.”
*
* * *
*
Her eyes wander not as the path she descends,
That gems might not tempt her, nor horrors affright.
By torchlight she follows, for hours on end,
That strange dream-land tunnel, that maw of the night.
Fell rumblings of dragons, grim clamor of imps
Ever surge and abate, though no creature maid spies.
More mocking those sounds grow, far deep in the pit –
Like thousand hobs giggling and snick’ring with spite.
*
* * *
*
Oh lair of nightmares! Such endless black depth,
So many hours marching, to Freyja disclose
A viscous sea, welling with whirlpools of breadth
Enough to consume e’en the grandest of boats.
Through stygian waves slowly paddles that whale
Of eyes like twin curses, and teeth what bring pain
To souls in that lake whom the stinging tides ail,
Whose piteous howling stokes rue in the dame.
And far, far away, past the corpses that bob
Looms an island of flora, as small as a speck
Of candlelight glowing from cabin of logs
’Mid wilderness dark on a deep-winter trek.
The whale hath passed from her view, and she swims
Through billows like ink; souls sing grief in her ear
And conjure in goddess such heart-feelings grim,
And speak of the bleak hour of death, and of fear.
On isle, a wind blows, and leeks meekly dance
As the goddess exhausted slow-staggers ashore.
The whale ever turns, and the maid walks entranced
By the gleam of those petals, by waves’ sluggish roar.
Now softness of primrose is felt by her hand,
And unconsciously plucked, to her nostrils it glides.
Retracing her steps, maid skips over black land
As an angel-like lightness slow-slips o’er her mind.
In sea she is swift, though not swift as before,
For the flower she clutches mars slightly her strokes.
Her legs thrash with vigor, her shoulders grow sore,
But the whale’s sweeping nigh as she’s near to the coast.
One foot’s on the sand, and the other not quite…
Oh, her heel is nicked by the fish’s sharp tooth!
On shore Freyja stumbles: The wound’s only slight,
But a poison is coursing her arteries through.
*
* * *
*
“Thou’st brought flower of long life?” the leering crow asks.
“If not, tears of blood thy two peepers shall weep!”
At cave-mouth the blossom is offered by lass:
“Oh, take: petals three, for your ravenous greed!”
The crows swarm upon her, and snatch at the bloom,
And its beauty its ruined by gluttonous beaks…
Oh, more than three petals they tear and consume!
“Oh back, villains, back!” the poor maiden now shrieks.
The birds sweep aloft, and they cackle up high,
While the damsel considers what prize she hath left.
“Shall be enough, these, to please Queen of the Sky:
Naught but pistil, and stamens, and crushed, crooked stem?”
*
* * *
*
She journeys, and journeys, and rows, sadly rows –
From the edge of the earth to the heart of the tides;
And ever her blossom more limp and limp grows,
And ever the poison weighs down that maid’s eyes.
In faintness she drifts on her whirling boat
That waterspouts lift to the clouds, then set down.
“Oh Fates, let me trust that towards sweetheart I float,
And not to some gulf where I’ll mis’rably drown.
“My primrose doth languish, I wander towards sleep,
And the ropes and oars gradually slip from my grasp.
Towards ladder so far-off my little ship creeps;
But the waves cruelly mock me, they push me right back.
“Thou perishest, oh, little blossom of life,
As the lowest rung taunts me, so close to my touch…
But the ladder hath gone! For thou, flower, hast died;
And the kingdom above now’s to me ever shut!
“Who walks in the view of my faltering eyes,
Where the sun opes above like a spreading, gold rose?
’Tis suitor, and treads he by pathways on high;
Through a door in the sky he departs… and it’s closed.”
*
* * *
*
To lugubrious shore hath the maiden’s skiff washed,
And blanketing fogs comfort her as she wakes.
“Oh where shall I search now for wandering Od;
How follow my love, who to heaven’s been ta’en?
“I know not; I cry, and I fall to despair:
The world is a corpse, with no soul in its flesh.
All life is a silence, a sad, futile prayer –
A winter for aye, with no spring springing fresh.
“Let fall me to Hel’s home, where dark is a balm,
A night of no memory; let drift me to ledge
Of ocean, to spill with froth’s surfeit, so calm
Might breathe through my nostrils, and bide in my head.”
She makes to push off, when strange sounds catch her ear –
Come a creaking and rumbling, a babbling, and mewls;
From fogs ramble now dame’s two children, so dear,
Who a chariot guide; and the cupidon crews
Attend them, aflutter. Two cats pull that car
Gersemi and Hnoss drive with reins in their grip:
Two tom-cats like devils, with eyes like red stars,
Four red gleams that promises make as they wink:
Some promises dreadful, but joyful as well,
Like gleam of that flame that in Helheim doth live,
But also in high halls where all the blessed dwell,
Where powers undreamt every failure forgive.
And daughters implore: “Mother, come to your home –
We lack your dear comfort, your kisses and song,
The warmth of your hearth-fire. No longer do roam;
Our father is not to be found, he is gone.
“Folkvang is your comfort, the fields where we play,
The butterflies’ blossoms, the rabbit’s low nook,
An arbor for deer, and the sheltering glade,
A haunt for the bee-eaters, nightjars, and rooks.
“In hall of Sessrumnir are roast lamb and stew,
The blanket and pillow, and stories we tell,
The glimmer of wine of the grapes the sun grew,
The mead-froth that brims like the puffed ocean’s swell.
“Be mother again to us, comb our bright hair,
And think of our father but now and again.
Our cats yearn to pull!” the two daughters declare,
“They wish for their suppers at long journey’s end!”
And Freyja with smile, and one tear on her cheek
That doth luster like foil that is gold, steps to car
’Twixt the daughters who love her; then wheels ’gin creak,
And the family sets off for Sessrumnir afar.
Through poppy-thick meadows they pass, and fresh glades
Where the daylilies riot, while sun drops apace;
And the goddess just catches, from thickets and shade,
The faint chanting of fairies, as hour grows late:
Oh the cherubs hover ’bove you,
And your darling daughters love you,
And a happy mansion’s waiting for you where horizon ***** *ends.
All thy tears thou’st spilt in sadness
And the throes of lovelorn madness:
Now they’re golden nuggets hiding in the caves and *****riverbeds;
And thou livest with this promise
Granted you by spirits honest:
That no more a black despair or hardest grief thy heart ***** *should rend…
But if melancholy take you,
And with grievous blow it break you,
Then in fairies of this dark place thou shalt always know*thy friends.
*
(Freyja Seeking Her Husband by Nils Blommér)
*