Song of Shade-Sigmund

Wyndreth Berginsdottir

Old foe
I know you,
Thorbjorns’s
second son
crouched low
conjuring smoke,
seeking Breste’s blood
at heathen hearth.

Wave-wielder,
Wind-wizard,
Your wicked wyrd
wants me here
where no Christman
walks willing,
summoned from
sorry sleep by
your unholy lore

So see me:
sundered Sigmund,
stiff-dressed in red
and dirt-cloaked,
my heavy head
a burden
better borne by
shrewd shoulders
than this
clay-cold arm
creaking with frost.

Old foe,
Gold knows;
woeful waits
the bane-ring,
wood-warded,
to tell the truth
your Norns knew:

Swordless
I was slain,
sea-washed
and wretched,
weary with the
weight of waves
and weaker men.

Butchered
blameless by
grasping banesmen
gold-greedy.

Left to lie
unshriven,
unsung, in
dank ditch
covered in clods
while Thuriđ bides,
keeps her own
cold bed,
waiting for word
of her stalwart
sun-haired swain.

Old foe,
your wicked fire
warms this wight
while godly men
hide in high halls.
But my bones
beckon me back
to where Thore calls
he cannot swim,
and drowns.

© 2010 karen l. u. kahan

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