(Gefjon Ploughs the Earth in Sweden by Lorenz Frølich)

 

 

What is it thou seekest through drizzlings of Spring,

Oh Gefjon, pale virgin, alone wandering?

Thy frame falters forward with throbbings and aches,

While the thorns draw thy blood in the wet tangled brakes.

 

“In uplands of starlight King Gylfi holds court,

And the priests offer grain on a rock on the moors.

Nine years slumbered I on Fyn, Odin’s green isle,

Where the sun rears the grape like the mother her child.

 

“But awake… In my womb the strong young one must stir,

So some dwelling-land other I’ll seek in this world.

Valhalla’s above, and grim Hel lies beneath,

And the day and night turn in this cold in-between.

 

“Where rise the flared gables? Where pours the mead-horn?

Where pillow, and lamp-light, and lusty hall-lord?

In the dreams of her death-sleep a vala saw rent

The curtain of white that surrounded a bed.

 

“Long keeps me the king betwixt quilt and warm sheet

While the Spring opens blossoms and gathers its heat.

‘For thy love,’ Gylfi speaks, ‘with a plow claim this right:

All the land thou canst circle in one day and night.’ 

 

* * *

 

“On a stone in the east the rain lashes and drips

While the candle-like stars in the storm clouds sleep hid.

A jotun lay by me as heaven bedewed

All the vast tracts of pines, and my body all nude.

 

“This belly swells great; now the summer has gone.

Ah, the music of squalls sings in whirlwinds above!

And the season drops low; from my womb and its gore

Crawl these hideous bairns – yea, this offspring four-fold!

 

“I wave the gnarled yew-wand, I speak the charmed words:

Now a change of my children to field-beasts I urge!”

And the snorting and stamping and bellowing loud

Rise from Jotunheim’s heart to the crowns of the clouds.

 

* * *

 

Like the terror of earthquake that breaks Ymir’s flesh

Was the mother’s hard plowing: Her four oxen pressed

With groans and with straining that sweated a fog

From their hides to the peaks and the lowliest bogs. 

 

One rust-red, one gray, and the other two white:

How they moan like Spring gales! And the rocky earth slice

With the plowshare behind them – cut straight to the depths

Where the groundwaters burble and rush, cold and fresh. 

 

Now the geese take to wing; from where oxen approach

Bound the startled deer, flushed from their dens in the holts.

And a flood ’gins to well about Gefjon’s bare feet,

Washing soles of the goddess and hooves of the team.

 

The mire grows thick, it bespatters her dress.

Oh, a whip she snaps round, her beasts’ backs to caress!

And from out the blue reaches o’erhead, flitter down

All of heaven’s pink cherubs: Towards plow-team they’re bound,

 

For to follow in train, and to rose-petals shower

Upon the dame’s head and upon her sons’ power

Of rearing and dragging, and grinding their blade

Like a knife ’cross the faces of meadow and glade.

 

Now the archangels trumpet their cornets on high

As the water that’s welling grows white as the sky.

And in wake of the plower, washed in from the sea,

Splash the tritons and sea-nymphs and mermaids carefree.

 

Soon Dag drives his cart to the margin of earth,

And the fire-land’s sparks shine their rays on the work

Of the splitting of land, which by morn shall come round

To the point where the blade first thrust firm in the ground.

 

* * *

 

With the dawn, a great trembling – King Gylfi awakes

As the wine goblets tumble and palace walls shake.

To a mountain-top dashes he, pulling on robes –

But he halts when a gut-striking sight he beholds.

 

With ropes knotted round chests, the team struggle and heave;

And the ropes pull a land, for they’re tied to the trees.

A plate of earth scrapes as it’s haltingly hauled:

A mound making its way, like a turtle that crawls.

 

To the shore – to the whale-plains! Stol’n land stirs a spray

As the oxen with lowing press hard through the waves;

And the goddess, eyes joyful, lets slip to her chest

Salty tears, while the salt foam is sloshing her breasts.

 

So beyond the horizon the chunk of earth’s drawn,

And by noon the wild groaning and foaming have gone.

And King Gylfi stands wild-eyed to see what remains:

’Tis a wide inland sea-stretch, a broad purling lake.

 

* * *

 

An island of silence in midst of a sound;

An island that’s covered with green like a gown…

An isle where the bright fruits of earth are devoured;

A home for the maidens who die undeflowered…

 

Four children, a mother, a hut in a glen –

Four children who hide in the ripe fields when

They’re called to their baths, and instead strip the vine

Of juicy pearls, gobbling what are meant to be wine…

 

A mother who’s joyful, whom virgins attend

On the home that she hauled – who the lake Mälaren

Did leave up in Sweden: Now she and her bairns

Raise the grape on the island of Zealand, sans cares.