(Svipdag and Menglad by Franz Stassen)

 

 

These glooms stretch far – forever, and beyond;

And all before’s a sweeping stonescape bare

Of ridgèd crests ’bove chasms’ darksome yawn,

Of tunnel-mouths leading to lowest lair.

    And whether from a sky these raindrops fell,

    Or from a cavern roof, I cannot tell.

 

To mother’s grave I travel o’er this earth,

Bade by her mumbling spirit for to come

To mound of woman who to me gave birth,

Her tomb of clay, sitting so drear and glum

    And sad – too sad to tell, too sad to say,

    Resting in vale where deepest shade has lain.

 

Nine hours I seem to pass the pillar-rocks

And arches, as the trail droops ever down –

Nine soundless hours, as steed beneath me walks

’Mongst stones that rise like titans from the ground;

    While at their feet lie what has worn away:

    The poor dust and debris of every age.

 

A voice as soft as thought hails mine approach,

Bypassing ear: Long is the way you’ll seek

Beyond this mound, beyond the crumbling roche

And ghastly shadow – landscapes solemn, bleak…

    But love is long, and love is longer still:

    Gentle as water, striving as the will.

 

A holy mount – I see it; dost thou, son?

An emerald mountain, far and faint and cold.

From Healing-Hill the crystal rivers run

To wet the throats of gullies in the wolds.

    One spies that peak, one spies the maiden white

    Reclining on her bed of blossoms bright.

 

Nine maids surround that beauty in her sleep,

Nine nurses for the sick or wounded man.

They sleep as well, in soft and haunted peace,

In mists above this blank and barren land.

    And no wight damaged who the maidens finds

    Shall live in hurt, in body or in mind.

 

Against the fire, against the blustering sea,

The storm-burst, and the foe-man’s flashing blade,

I’ll sing thee charms, sweet spells I’ll sigh to thee,

So from the gaping tomb thou mightst be saved

    To seek thy love, thy destined one on high

    Where fogs of chill earth melt in warming sky.

 

“Glad-in-her-Necklace, mother, I’ll pursue,

For what thou view’st, I view as well, in heart,

And trust that beauteous vision might be true:

That damsel whom the treach’rous cliffs do guard –

    And not mere hope, and not a sweven vain:

    Cheat for the lonesome, figment in the brain.”

 

* * *

 

Showers have passed here; the rainbows lift tall;

Down cliff-sides sheer now the fresh waters run

From small ledge to ledge, and laughingly fall

Through cracks, out which toadstools and clover nudge.

    Sun-gold beam the heavens, rain-moist, remote,

    Where islands of the cirrus-jötnar float.

    

Now half a day up mountain-pass I wend,

To find that dark green hill that harm relieves;

And droplets drip from stones at every bend

Like clock of nature – slow, quite slow, at ease:

    With dizzy head, I fall nearly asleep

**As something nameless through this bright land *       **creeps.

 

* * *

 

Up through green elevation now I ride,

While whisper silent voices through the air;

Each pine and shrub and stump I’ve left behind –

The unbarred breeze sweeps o’er this summit bare…

    But at the peak, no damsel doth appear –

    But flame-wall vast! A horrid fire that sears 

 

The face of stones, and pours smoke like the breath

Of wyrm most putrid, wheezing in its hole,

Or like black soot blown in the land of death,

That place of pain, where blaze exacts the toll,

    Ne’er paid, that’s due to breaker of one’s oaths,

    To slayer, liar – all who virtue loathe.

 

Red turn the clouds, and sky to ebon’s shade,

And through thick fire, a hall I seem to glimpse –

Grand dreadful manse, that on the point of blade

Does perch in balance, hov’ring; merest flinch

    Might symmetry disturb, palace upset…

    A broken toy, a doll-house dropped and wrecked.

    

What gruesome monster’s this! He lives ’mong stones,

Between their cracks, and in a cave-mouth looms,

Unsettling and uncanny; limbs and bones

Lie at his feet, in dark, forsaken room

    Below the fire: a jotun of the rocks,

    Whose mouth, as wide as toad’s, proceeds to talk:

 

Much-Wise am I, the giant-guardian

Who keeps this way; no place is here for thee,

No fare, nor welcome – Mengloth shall be won

By man of worth, who’s claimed the grandest gree.

    Return to loit’ring on the lower paths;

    Test not my strength, test not this fire’s wrath.

 

“Wind-Cold am I, oh creature, and my sire

Was Spring-Cold, child of Full-Cold; naught shall bar

My way to her whom I, so fond, desire –

Not e’en a flame that toughest bark might char.

    Above that flickering fence mean I to leap,

    Upon my magic horse, this springing steed!”

 

Now hearty sound the giant’s chortling snorts,

Like tumbling of rocks down mountain-side!

Saith he: Thou fool, if fire will not thwart 

Thy rash advance, yet still shall end thy life

   Before ramparts of Lyr, perilous house

   Enclosing her, thy lovely, would-be spouse.

 

Intruder-Strangling is the wall built I

For Mengloth, on four sides surrounding her –

Clay-Giant’s limbs I stacked so strong and high;

Loud-Grating is the gate that bars the churl

    From touching maiden, breaking calf or shin

    By slamming shut just as he passes in!

 

Such gate deters thee not? Two wolves indoors

Keep watch by turns – one paces through the day,

The other o’er the night, as brother snores –

Greedy and Glutt’nous are those fell ones named.

    And no flesh mightst thou toss for to distract

    That constant vigil – save one tasty snack:

 

Vidofnir’s wing-joint – he the rooster is

Who percheth at the top of Mimir’s tree.

No steed of giantess such flesh resists,

More succulent than any other meat.

    Slay tree-top cock, if thou canst, questing chap!

    Or cede thy leman, shunning fiendish trap!

 

“No gate fear I, and neither do I wolves!”

Claim I to ettin. “Tell me, if thou know’st:

What weapon might I swing that keenly culls

Vidofnir’s life, casting him down to lowest

    Layer of Helheim, that his wing I might

    Throw to the wolf of day, or wolf of night?”

 

And giant saith: One sword exists whose blow

The rooster might destroy – Sinmora lies

Beside the mortal in whose chest it’s stowed –

Wounding-Wand yclept, and locks full nine

    Fasten that blade in ever-bleeding breast

    In midst of flaming land; and none might wrest

 

That Damage-Twig to use, unless he gifts

To Surt’s wife one thing of more worth to her –

Art curious, fool? Ask me what it is!

Speak I: “All would I risk, dear sleeping girl

    Of maidens nine, for aye to have as make –

    So tell, Much-Wise, Sinmora’s wish in trade!”

 

Naught else, saith smug and evil-grinning one,

Than collar that fair Mengloth’s neck doth clasp!

Oh, circle closes, and thy story’s done:

Turn ’round thy horse; to barren plains turn back.

    Ne’er shalt thou buy that sword by Lopt was made

    At gate of death, or handsome damsel gain!

 

And laughs the loathsome creature in his den,

Swelling the fire, cackling with cruel delight.

Shout I: “Back in thy hole, out of my ken,

Oh worthless one! With bounding, boundless might,

    The crackling fence my horse shall sail above;

    And dangerous door with vigor shall I shove

  

“To break within – then dogs I’ll wrestle down

’Til they are naught but puling whelps that lick

My hand most merciful; and joyous sound

Shall ’scape from Mengloth’s mouth that bloody bricks

    Of Lyr, Clay-Giant’s limbs, not for all time

    Might bar the lover for whom she hath pined

 

“Through slumber of Dag’s reign as well as Nott’s,

Viewing the man whose face shines like the day

In swevens constant, realm of sacred thought

And sentiment, that holy, endless plane

    To which my prayer now rises that I’ll glide

    O’er flaming wall, like weightless butterfly.”

 

                                         * * *

 

My head, it seems to scrape the downward spikes

Of pointed stars revolving in the black

As over flames my steed and I leap like

Some marvelous comet roaring through its track;

    And down beyond the barrier we land

    As soft as specters, stallion and his man.

 

That portal was made by Solblindi’s sons,

Ingenious dwarfs, now I push and I force.

The steel gate groans as the threshold it rubs –

I dash within ere it snaps shut, the door…

    And in huge hall, as dim as deepest cave,

    As dark as sight in th’abhorrent grave,

 

I hear the panting of the wolf awake,

And see, as though some sourceless light did spread,

The stiffening of that cruel lupine shape,

And beauteous Mengloth lying on her bed.

    And like some fire stirred up to life and sparks,

    The bed’s now fulgent, glowing in the dark:

 

Nine damsels slumber all that couch around,

In manse that wobbles, held upon the tip

Precarious of sword – oh, down and down

We seem to drop! Towards abject land we slip

    As nurses stir, dismayed, and dog so fell

    Doth stalk me through false house, crashing to Hel!

 

* * *

 

Somewhere that countenance I’ve viewed before:

Somewhere those lips, like first bud of the world;

Somewhere those ears, like shells at wat’ry floor;

And eyes, like winter’s blooms, closed-up and curled,

    That ope – too sad to tell, too sad to say.

    The wolf, it rends my life – and then I wake.