The Faerfolk’s Edda - The Lay of Hôdalar
The Queen of Despair and Hope, of Sorrow and Joy. Of death and mourning; and the frozen, fractured North.
The mother world lay dead and cold,
Her cloak o’winding winter.
Drifted she through young and old,
Through all things past and all foretold,
With none to mourn, save one, behold;
A single, dismal splinter.
The splinter grew, though grew encased
In black and frozen water,
She bit, she scratched, and bore with haste
Right through the cold world’s carapace.
Delight it lit the mother’s face,
For she’d birthed a fair-faced daughter.
A beauty, dressed in sorrows black,
She tore through ice and snow,
Until her claws had formed a crack,
That fractured down her mother’s back,
She rose, she wept, her throat a-clack,
For grief had wracked her so.
Hôdalar; the dead world named her,
The frozen north her throne,
A crown of grief and ice had claimed her,
Served by snows that shunned and shamed her.
Bitter serfs that clawed and maimed her
Deep, to blackened bone.
For countless age the daughter wept,
With mournful cries and frozen tears,
She never ate, she never slept,
Her heart too heavy to e’er accept,
Those sorrows all, that crawled and crept,
And whispered in her ears.
She fashioned from her darkest tear,
A lantern black as night,
She thought the light might disappear
The whispered words and nameless fear,
But sacred fire would ne’er go near,
Such cold and joyless plight.
The ages passed, the world long dead,
The daughter lost to sorrow,
Until a magpie came and said,
(While perched atop the daughter’s head)
“Dry your eyes, and go to bed,
You’ll feel better come the morrow.”
She tried, then cried, then thrashed about,
The Pie he watched her weeping,
“Try again, but this time shout,
When e’er your musings fall to doubt,
For I will come and snuff them out,
And leave your nights for sleeping.”
She tried again, then as her mind
Was turned to grief a-clawing,
The Pie ate all, her grief consigned,
To bowel and bladder, beak and hind.
The Magpie looked, and there did find,
A daughter softly snoring.
“Oh, Master Magpie,” the daughter said,
Upon her morning rise,
“You plucked the sorrow from my head,
You live while all that lived are dead,
You warm the air where e’er you tread.
I dare not trust mine eyes.”
For while the Queen had slept that night,
Her Magpie, fat on grief,
Had birthed a twin to join his flight,
But this bird did not feed on plight,
Instead he fed on pure delight,
On hope and held belief.
“I am Joy.” “While I am Sorrow,”
The magpies sang from left to right,
“To guide your steps and bid you follow,
From yesterday, so dark and hollow,
Through rain today, and sun tomorrow,
To beckon dawn so bright.”
“There be no then, nor when, nor soon,”
The queen gave in a mournful moan,
“No dusk, no dawn, no sun, no moon,
No midnight, morn nor afternoon.
Just endless night. And ice half-hewn,
To shape a lonesome throne.”
“Sweet Hôdalar,” The magpies cawed,
Their words alive with fire.
“Do not believe your woe ignored,
Our Master’s will is why we soared,
For we’re a gift, your first reward,
To serve as you desire.”
“Your master?” “Yes.” The birds replied,
Keen to sing their master’s praise.
“He sits a throne of fire, bestride
A dragon with an emerald hide,
He humbly asks you be his bride,
Until your end of days.”
“A Prince of Fire?” Her anger woke,
Her heart beat all the faster.
“Where e’er there’s fire, there is smoke,
Twin magpies and a wedding cloak?
Is all this just the beastly joke
From your cruel and mocking master?”
“No fierce maid!” The birds implored,
“There’s gifts beyond your reckoning!
A crown, a bird, a cloak a sword,
And marriage to a generous lord,
For whom your beauty struck a chord,
Your distant wails a-beckoning.”
The Daughter sighed and sat she down,
Upon a snowy hill,
“I wish, brave birds, to wear his crown,
To thaw my heart and mend my frown.
Resplendent in a silken gown,
But broken be my will.”
She held aloft her lightless light,
And with it dark descended,
A lamp so black it ushered night
To dim the skies and with it; sight,
The Magpies offered, “If I might?”
And saw her lantern mended.
The Magpies both breathed steady fire,
That caught and thawed the icy wick,
And when it caught, she rose it higher,
And cowed the ice with fierce desire,
The snowstorms knelt to see the pyre,
Burning bright and quick.
“My birds,” she beamed, her gift a-burning,
Her heart too warm to cope,
“I can’t believe this joy, this yearning,
Like snow and ice, the grief’s adjourning,
What is it, pray, is spring returning?”
“Nay,” they cawed, “it’s hope.”