I sit in
my hall of diminished guests listening to faded tales and remember. My tears
drop into the amber ale, but the guests have seen me weeping so many times,
they continue merry-making; they’ve lost the skill of gratitude. Fires crackle
primordial sighs in the great hearths that surround us on all sides. Tapestries
woven with immortal fingers tell mute tales. Gold and silk abound, harps and
lyres twang their tunes. Boasts bellow from beer-bathed lips, laughter echoes
on empty ears.
Wine-sotted
eyes from about the room steal lecherous glances at me. I hide my treasure and
my jewels behind me, but I know it is to my face and form their eyes lust.
Healed from heart piercing points, women who lavished their lives upon their
wedded one's wounds now cast their eyes about the room. Reunited war-torn
lovers pine for each other over the eternal bridge that bonds them.
The other
bridge, the one distant, past the horizon, is vacant. Its flames no longer
burn, no longer glorify the gates of Asgard. The mighty, who once crossed in
hordes, have shunned the march, lost sight of our tall gleaming turrets, no
longer come. I miss the sound of their singing voices, their human glee as they
finger their healed wounds, and their laughter at finding fallen comrades
firmer and fitter than their last remembrance. When men pass over the fear of
death, the desperate shine that pushes them to glory disappears from their
faces.
Now there
is a weariness to their joviality; theirs the tired faces of disappointed
expectation. Without the promised war, these men are slovenly. Rusting swords
hang beside cast-off byrnies on the walls. An armor of blubber coats once
muscle-rippled ribs. More like the whales they hunted in the chase for life,
their energetic blaring now whines, not in the quest for victory, but for more
wine. Where pride and strength vitalized the hall, envy and gluttony weigh the
roof and walls.
The sight
of mighty men corrupted by monotony sickens me. Their fate was a greater glory
that eludes them now. The question arises, "When will Surt come out of
Muspelheim?" It is tedious. Some say he no longer exists; that none of the
frost giants exist. Our new seers bemoan the warming of the planet. Skoll and
Hati play in the green fields like farmstead dogs. Fjalar, Gullinkambi, and
Sotraud sleep in the roost.
But my
warriors still contend they live in paradise, this paradise of soft cushions
and idle time. Yes, there is no pain here, but there is no glory, no
achievement. There are no gallant guides to stand above the rest and lead men
to greater courage, to higher dignity. These are the heroes of yore, but today
they are the sheep of the flock, out to pasture, bleating in the sunshine, and
swaying to the slightest breeze.
*****
I come
from a land of storytellers who sing of heroes who went into the forest to fell
the timber and build their ships. They flowed across the seas to settle on the
coastlines of the northern countries. They cleared the land of giants,
overturned boulders, fought the trolls who lived inside, and made a space for
men among the wilderness beasts.
The Age of
Man began when the frost giants fled into the mountains. Men made homes for
children to be born and plowed the soil for crops to grow. Wheat and rye they
reaped, threshed, hulled, and milled and from them loaves of bread rose and
tankards of ale foamed. They ruled the land and the sea and slept under the
skies of history. The climate was gentle and prosperity blessed mankind.
The songs
tell of this age and recall the deeds of chiefs and kings. They tell of war and
wit, men mighty in strength, tales I've heard a hundred, hundred times. But
immortality is a pallor that deadens ambition, as age deadens the curiosity of
childish eyes.
The bards
are not as lively as once they were, their rhythm tripped in faulty
recollection. The bard recites his lines:
Gudrod, Halfdan's son, succeeded.
Called Gudrod the Magnificent,
And also Gudrod the Hunter.
He was married to Alfhild,
A daughter of King Alfarin of Alfheim,
And got with her the district of Vingulmark.
The bard
recites on, unaware of his mistake, but the dancers stutter, pause to find
their pace in stymied steps that no one notices. They are a squalid hoard. I
can bear it no longer.
"Get
up! Get up! You men have reached this high. I'll no longer entertain your
debauchery. Out with your whirling whetstones. Down with your rust-gutted
blades. Ragnarok may be upon us and you are unprepared."
Clamor
rings in the halls like leaves on an evil wind. Sloth falls into discord and
mighty men brawl like boys. No one knows what is about until they circle
around. My battle helm flashes in their eyes and my sword charges lightening in
the air.
"Tough
tales of men try my ears with brash bravery and swilling swaggery. Who will
sing songs of sweet sisters, mothers and wives? Who will tell tales from the
quiet cupboard or dim weaving rooms where heroines hail? Who will speak of the
woman cast into a man's world -- where laws are hidden by avarice and ambition
-- forced to cope, caught and conquered, with only her will and wits?
"Some
slip between the gates of birth and death without adversity, but there is no
meaning to a life that doesn't put honor and courage to challenge. What is the
worth of a warrior on the field of battle who shirks the contest, hides behind
the shield and never thrusts his point of sword? What is the consequence of a life
that is never tested?
"Take
my place at table, bard, if you can't entertain me with such a tale and I will
sing you a song unlittered by your poetics and alliteration, unspoiled by your
crafty kennings. Hear my tale of innocence protected by layers of love, a jewel
treasured by family, friends and fealty; a tale that teaches that nothing in
the world is immune from catastrophe, nothing given by life that isn't taken
away, except one's own heart and valor; a tale of a woman who rises above the
coercion of fate to lay her own imprint on history."
