Song of the Einherjar
| Wyndreth Berginsdottir |
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I was a young man then
and lived for the spear-dance. My blood pounded hot then as summer's hard sun. My thoughts then were bold ones of women and warfields, and glory and prowess upon either one. It was a grey morning: in rain I had risen. I let my horse lead me to drink at a stream. As we drew near it I heard someone singing a song full of glory, of ravens and steel. I stood as if rooted and drank in the fine sound. All the gold in the world could not move me away. Instead I strode closer to glimpse the song's singer and when I gazed on her my breath fell away. She sang as she bathed as lithe as the salmon, all clothed only in what the gods made. Her skin pale as the glaciers, her eyes golden as amber, and her hair gleamed as red as a new-blooded blade. she turned and she saw me. She smiled like she knew me, as if pleased I was there. She rose and stepped toward me clad just in cool water, and I? I went to her-- I was a young man. I woke in the noon's sun and I woke up smiling. I looked for my lover but I was alone. My horse she had taken, but where he'd been tethered a fine leaf-blade spear leaned-- like black ice it shone. Now that spear's served me well in the long years I've had it; it's light was the last light full many men knew. My kinsmen joke often how my spear is bewitched-- I have no answer. My wordfame has grown. Enough years have passed now to turn my beard silver. Again, I'm in service to a man who'd be king. As part of his warband I stand on the warfield with my spear and my kinsmen, and hear the crows sing. from the first ringing shieldclash --a moment, a lifetime, no man can fair say. Just the thunder of steelsong and screams of the dying and the stink of the blood while Wyrd works its way. But it's odd now how this time through the killing and dying I hear someone singing a half-recalled song. And I listen and smile while I feed my spear's hunger, and the singing grows clearer and sweeter and strong. How a man's death comes is only as important as how each man meets it when it comes for him. I meet mine fighting a foe from the westland-- my spear finds his heart while his own blade bites me. I fall to my knees in the blood of my banesman. The fighting rages 'round me but silently now except for the singing-- I hear it full clearly: A song full of glory, full of ravens and steel. A touch on my shoulder and my eyes fly open-- I am not dead yet, though the ravens draw near. I look into eyes as gold as the eagle's, see hair flowing red as the blood on my spear. She smiles as she sees me, so fiercely, so fondly, and she speaks my name in a voice full of light. She cradles my head in her arms as I lie there and my last heart-blood spills, stains her swan-coat of white. Now again I'm a young man and I live for the spear-dance and my blood runs as hot as the gods' oldest war. And when Ragnarok comes, I will fight it beside Them, my spear and my shield-maid, to Valhalla's own door. © Lyrics, tune: Karen L.U. Kahan 7/2003 |
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