Brothers Will Fight

 

Two nights past Sólmánudr

Gaela, my dearest,

Our home is settled now. Ásh and Mikael have been tending to the goats, they always make sure that our small keep is filled with beautiful things for their mother.

Ásh still hasn't abandoned his talents. We have woven bark baskets, reed sheets, and willow bundles all littering the yard.

His crafts are good for holding soaked wools, and for growing fruit through, they're good for drainage, but they are becoming cluttersome.

He is trying to sell them, just like you, but I think most of his success comes from his youthful charm.

Mikael is angry, like many boys of his age, more so when I tell him about our sagas. I stopped, for a while, but he demanded to hear more, and in truth, they breathe a passion back into my heart, too. A broken man's passion; my spirit is far from youthful now.

I'll have to read these for you later, I know that. I had to learn to write last winter. These new people of Boar Land, they're making 'abbots and nuns' out of good druið and völva. That is, those lucky few of us who are too popular to kill. The Wolf of Rome may have swallowed our Alfather, but our ways remain, as do the Celts'. For now, though, I am well, and I am loved,

as are you,

Frayrar.
 

Mösurgr, nine nights before

Beloved Gaela,

This cross hangs so heavily around my neck. I can only tell myself that Mjolnir is standing on his pommel so many times before I feel Thor's fury in the skies above me. The folk I'm surrounded with now... I cannot live among them.

Each person I meet is different. Some talk with the words of old Eire, some with the tongues of Caledonian men, and others with the confidence of southern soldiers. Everyone speaks to me of Christ, and I tell them what I have been told, and they are happy with what they hear.

The dark summers have cleared, so I guess this is a new age? Ásh has been taken away from me in a manner that my father would never have accepted, but it is what we do here. He is apprenticed to a cooper. He visits me with the birth of every moon and brings me good wines, meats, and clothing; when he can afford it. I love him as much as his mother, but he is so distant now. Mikael is with me, still, but he's far more distant than Ásh. He treats our land like a place of employment, a forge, a barn, a row of fields, but not a home. I am so lost; my eldest son cannot bear to be in my company outside of meals and duty. I know that he fights in town, and drinks. People have told me that much. He refuses to use the new words as I do, and he mentions you often. All I can do is worry about him, that is all men of this age are allowed to do. Worry, and wait for you.

Yours for all ages,

Frayrar.

 

Twenty-six nights after Góa, 555

Gaela,

Our boy is gone. People from Baile Cliath Átha rose in anger. He was drinking there during an evening, three nights ago, and they knew who he was; they called him 'heathen' and 'barbarian', and… now he is dead. Fintan, his employer, the cooper, a good man, was with him. He said he fought two off, but the rest won out. I do not know if he is lying, or if he told them that our son wasn’t Eireann, or if he watched them kill Ásh like a pig in the street.

He is seated in Valhalla, now. I have that at least.

Mikael will not return to me. He says that I killed Ásh by speaking their words and leading the worship of a single god. He left on the night of Ásh's death, and I have not heard from him since. I am too tired to run out into the night hunting a younger, much stronger man. We can only wait for him to return.

I am alone. I have been alone every day here, without you by my side.

I am lost,

Frayrar.
 

The fourteenth day of Apriles,

568. Anno Domini.

My Gaela,

I am returning home! Mikael came to me, so many years after leaving he has returned, not with anger but with love. He tells me that not everyone left our lands when the mountains cracked. Some folk fled north and made a poor life fishing, but they survived, and now the land is fertile once more. The Papar are there, but they are few, and they are isolated, and our people have flourished. He wishes to take me back to our Ísaland.

Are you still there?

My memories of that day,

the burning rock and boiling fjords, of losing you to the fire and the smoke.

I will struggle to return, but my spirit no longer lives with me here, it waits on Ísaland. The sea routes north are safe and often sailed. I am too tired to make a hard voyage, but I have no choice. I have lost my place with the honoured dead, and I have stopped praying to the dead gods, but I will return to the wights of my homeland, to the hills of my youth,

to you,

the only love of mine.

Soon,

Frayrar.

​
 

A Wind Age

 

'The Girdle of the Realm is straining beneath our feet; I think Jörð must be pregnant again!'

      Our captain, Jacob, sees a storm blooming ahead. He does one of the only things Jacob can do in times of danger; He jokes about someone fucking a goddess.

      'Maybe Petersen has beaten it into the sea one too many times?’ He turns to look out over the bow, to hide the saltwater around his eyes.

      ‘If he could pull his oars as furiously as he pulls his serpent, Grandmother Jörð would be calm, and we would have reached Turtle Island by now!' Most of the men are in hysterics at his words, some of the women are, too, but the rest of us just make non-committal grunts and keep our rhythms. We all keep rowing.

      The soot clouds over Ísaland have followed us across the seas. It is a portent of doom, so we are all rowing with worry in our hearts. Jacob, pretending to be indifferent, continues his character assassinations. The comments grow more venomous and far less coherent. He doesn't take his eyes off the canopy of darkness above as it looms over the ocean and throws walls of wind to shake our craft.

      I swear the western shore was visible mere moments ago. It must still be ahead of us, somewhere, but I might as well be blindfolded by the darkness, and by this dense mist. I am not guiding the crew, so all I can do is continue rowing. Jacob was right, though, Jörmungandr must be thrashing beneath us, because horses-sized waves are galloping against our ship without end.

'Tie up, pull the oars in, sink the counterweights deeper! Eilea, clear the gangway, now!' Jacob's feet tuck down into an open deck slat, then he binds his weak arm with the loose rigging running along the ship's rim.

      'Speak your galdur, sisters, and hold on for your fucking lives.'

      I clutch the wheat husk and bone Mjolnir hanging around my neck, then try to pull at my oar with my other hand. Halldis, my younger sister, gives me fresh gifts of protection like these whenever I sail. Despite my shortcomings, she's always been there for me. A dear sister. My free hand isn't strong enough, though. Apparently, Móði and Magni aren't happy about me wearing their parents' icons as Halldis is. The thunder screams at me, the waves beat me, and the winds push me to the floor. The horizon is all wrath and fury.

A pale leviathan slowly creeps its tendrils towards us, reaching across the ocean's back while we scrabble in fear. Clapped echoes boom across the world. The boat's rocking grows. Everyone aboard knows what to do. We lash ourselves against the benches, using the oar tethers and straw storage for cord.

      The boat is thrashed and harrowed. My breathing stops as the sky splits. Mighty Thor clashes with the jöttun Thrym to retrieve his hammer. A bolt of lightning-blue burrows into a nearby iceberg's side, splintering it and showering us in giant's gore. We cheer.

Our vessel is wind-pushed hard against the steaming ice, and Jacob falls against the deck with the jolt, Henrik too, then Gretta who's seated beside me. Our captain lands within arm's reach of me and paints a small patch of the deck red with his blood. He claws out, searching for a reassuring grip among the drifting brine.

      I rush over to him, instinctively freeing myself of my tethers. My hand flies out, a raven to its nest after a lifetime adrift at sea. The wind crashes all around, deafening me. Our hands meet. He holds me.
 

The storm overhead is grey fire; smoke with an anger of its own. For a moment, Jacob and I lock eyes, just as we had done as children, each time he wrestled me to the ground and stuck bilberry nests in my hair. His grey-steel eyes as inviting as the gale is terrific. We look at each other for just a moment before my lifelong battle-cry comes from his lips.

'Let go of me, you fucking ergi man!'
 

Two punches misalign my jaw and send me hurtling to the floor. His spittle burrows into my beard. Tears sprout fast and strong across my face. A well-known feeling, sickly and comfortable. I take up my oar and beat against the pain without saying a word. Jacob shouts at nothing, then turns to face the storm. Behind me, Olga's hand carefully lands on my shoulder to offer support, but I batter it away; to be more manly? or at least, to avoid seeming less so?

      Jacob's shouting resumes, but it's almost completely killed by the gust. He calls Valkyrie Þrúðr a whore and we sail onwards. There's so much anger in the wind.

      His screams sound like they share my pain, 'Oars back out you whoresons. Now row. Row, for gods' sake, row.' With knuckles white-tight against the handle, and with a wail in my mouth – sobs, hidden behind a sailor's exhaustion - I do exactly what he tells me to do.
 

Do you still seek to know?

And What?

​

She gathers together her wyrd sisters and the village's mothers, but tries not to look at them. They're daughters she'll never see and wives she'll never be, a choir of women there to sing their grandmothers' old-songs. We are already with them. We sleep in the stool she sits on and dwell within her beating staff. We buzz through the air to snatch glimpses and watch from the rocks, we play through the goats, and lie atop the rolling mists. Everyone from their village has gathered to hear her speak our words, while we are just out of view. The Jarl's partner brings her berries and honeyed breads; she claims it's better to summon us.

      The women's singing is imperfect, but it's fit for purpose. Girls struggle to pronounce many of the old words, and aged wives find that they cannot match their daughters' vitality. But still, their songs are enough for us. Hel, a drunken sailor's slurred chanting is enough to bridge our world to theirs. Their divine seiðkona has eaten a heifer's heart and wears its skin pinned over a woollen tunic, which itself is layered over her sweat-stained dress. The cow's death didn't need to happen for us to take notice of her, but we do like the razor clamshell she wears as pins. They're nice.

      Snowflakes begin falling in time with their singing, but they're human, so they wouldn't notice such things. Meditation follows and everyone is silenced. She abandons her body as it beats out a trance-pulse on an oaken staff.

      Free of body she walks through her mind, carried by the song of her ancestors, along a golden meadow and atop firm strides, over supple briars who bear thoughtful fruit. The ageing seiðkona reaches her imagined ash tree and gazes deep into its root-filled mouth. We see her miss a step with uncertainty, but soon she steels herself and climbs inside. We are waiting for her in there.
 

She arrives in our world refilled with conviction. We flock to meet her alongside the creeping land and crawling skies, however, they're more excited to see her than we are. She calls it Alfheim, this Tír na nÓg across the sea, and Annwfyn if you head further south. We've never needed to name our home, but the Seiðkonur do. We greet her with open limbs, smiling through a collection of faces she's more comfortable with, and try to wear various abstract bodies, but she wastes no time on our pleasantries.

      These aren't the same conversations we had when she was young. Girlhood-her sings to us about moss wives and trölls, she shines and loves the adventure of simply being, but this wiser-woman is dull inside, our meetings are technical and specific. She calls, and we respond.

      The seiðkona has come to us to make the village's rye and barley plots flourish again, because they died wholesale last year, and seem to be suffering from the same fate this season. She asks us to heal the land, but what does she expect us to do? Talk to the crops and make them fatter? Threaten Sol and force her to shine brighter? Scare away the creatures they this are pests? Her words are so expectant, and her expectations are so empty.

      Behind the veil, her watchers line-up to find out what will happen in times to come. We answer her and she sings to them, but she's an unreliable orator and they're a selfish audience. We must be word-wise with our response.

      Our advice is quite simple. Their crops are not flourishing for several reasons. Nutrient erosion has occurred because they are ripping down their forests, they bleach their fields by regularly burning its fallow, and they're only rearing monocultures rather than employing the biodiverse techniques of Turtle Island. The clan must stop burning their lands. Inedible plants should flourish alongside their crops to encourage nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium exchange in the soil, and they should integrate their farmland with the ancient forests to the north, rather than ripping them all down.

      She listens to us patiently. Without any thanks, the seiðkona takes our advice and returns to her world content. We have given answers to the clan's prayers, but she will answer them.
 

On the return from the astral and back to her body, enlightened with the knowledge of how to save these people, the woman grins a confident smile. The beating staff stops and so fades the way between worlds. Her breathing happens to be in perfect unison with that of a pig and two goats watching her from outside of the circle. We are still there, too. With a smile, their seiðkona awakens, takes a deep breath, and sings the agricultural wisdom she has learned from us.

​

'From the hound's proud seed grows a burning tree,

to destroy the house of mead and harm good men at sea.

Fields of fresh ash will tomorrow sow,

abandoning tradition will only bring sorrow.

I see life returning to Ísaland’s shores,

while brothers fight brothers on the Isle of Boars.'

​

The clan is overjoyed to hear her words. New life is returning, and they don't have to do a thing. Their Jarl offers her even more gifts of clothing and mead, which she graciously accepts. At sunrise, the woman wearing a cow's skin sails back to Suðreyjar. She leaves the clan comfortable that their future will be fortuitous, thanks to their pure and indelible seiðkona, and leaves our true warnings unheard.

Wolf Age

​

You approach the circle, broad with purpose, rehearsed in form, confident and bold. A tale coiled within your limbs, ready to unfurl, and your namesake's pelt runs down your spine. This saga is young, but it is yours, Wolf's, the only tale your mother taught you. Hrothgar, your uncle proud, calls Hackett forward to become foul Grendel.

A perfect, pathetic choice.

      His spindle-limbs pretend to kill better men, warriors who will hopefully return the favour when he comes of age. Your creaking knuckle-skin betrays you. Your eagerness to play.
 

After his impotent flailing, Hackett leaves the circle. The cheers for him must be false. The shoulder pats console the boy's frailty. You know in your heart that the girls' beaming faces are masks. Your uncle quietens the crowd by begging Beowulf to save his tribe. Wolf hears his words before they're spoken, the lyrical beats are your heart's pulse.

      You march in from Geats or Gaul, or somewhere to the south, singing the older songs, beating your legs, and letting your sword's face kiss your broad einherjar chest. Mighty Wolf's howl commands Hackett to return. He hesitates. A fucking coward unworthy of the clan’s gaze. Bone-white face-skin quivering. Your lupine footfalls crash against the stage-dirt, and he creeps towards you. Wolf kicks our firepit's kindling with a mighty hoof. Smoke and embers and ashy-wights swoop all the way around you. Everything is commanded by Beowulf, even the elements, and you are Beowulf.

      Grendel falters at the challenge, tears already brewing in his defeated eyes.

      He staggers, but you have the people of Heorot to save, so Wolf strikes true. You're not allowed steel, so sharp wood strikes against Hackett's pallid jaw. You pine for steel. Need it. Smoke picks up around you. Light flickers behind and the fire pit smoulders to the right. Grendel's hands cover his face. He should be striking you back, foul Grendel fought like a storm, but today he is cowed and incapable. Wolf is at war. The crowd gasps and climbs to their feet. Hackett turns to flee, but you kick at his knee, sending him crashing out of the tale. Crackling rings around you, Hrothgar's mead-hall is burning in your mind. The spectators gasp.

      With opened eyes, you see Grendel in the arms of three beautiful maidens. Why do they not come to you, Wolf? Are you the hero of this saga, the saviour of Heorot? Instead, they mew over Hackett and try to carry him away. But he is weak. He lies on the floor counting each blood drop you gave him. Grendel always falls while Beowulf claims every honour and glory, that is how it should be.

      No one is cradling you, with your wooden sword held high and a laugh in your stomach. A knotted, always-collapsing stomach. Wolf-sweat streams down your face from the strain, or the growing heat behind you. The crowd cheers for you, or calls to you, shouts at you, runs from you. But they don't hold you. They are away from the circle, watching their mead-hall burn. Bales of hay coated in the embers that you kicked behind you flame around its walls. Fathers call you weak and pitiful while they fetch pails of water. No one is cradling the Wolf. Your broad shoulders fall like the burning beams. The birch smoke makes the lone Wolf's eyes water, or perhaps, the battle sweat is stinging your eyes; maybe the joy of victory overcomes the Wolf...
 

So, tell me boy, what is wrong with you?