do you ever dream
of snowbound shores?
do you ever dream
of cliffs in hoars?
do you ever dream
of brine so landless?
of floes ever-cracking?
of thickets endless?
do you ever dream
of vikings with glaives
with mighty shoulders
bespread with snowflakes?
of Boreas' snowy
streaks in the air
or are they Valkyrs'
long wild hair?
do you hear visas*
neat and daedal,
woven by Hroft's**
very own needle?
waking at morn
do you still weep
and pray to Odin
going to sleep:
"to fjords and floes
make me return
return me to vikings
dauntless and stern
i'd be glad with Drakkar
made of dead men's nails***
if only from lands
of the fathers it sails
i'll go to Valhalla****
from the battle rough
i sleep every night
but the dream's not enough."
do you ever dream
of snowbounded shores?..
do you ever dream
of cliffs in hoars?..
*visa is a genre of scandinavian literature, a poetic cobweb woven so neatly that it makes one pretty much untranslatable. As Odin is a father and a main judge of art, it is for his ears that all the poetry and songs are meant for in the first place, and what has left him unmoved will reach no listener’s heart.
**Hroft is one of Odin’s uncountavble names.
***Naglfar, a ship made of dead men’s nails, will appear when Ragnarok, the end of the world, comes.
****To Valhalla, the house of Odin, will go all warriors fallen in battle.
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