(A chapter in my novel, Gridhr Jotun-kin. These chapters can be seen in order, beginning with the Prologue, by clicking on the menu item “Gridhr Jotun-kin: A Serial Novel”, above. Please note that the Prologue comes before this chapter.)
Winifred Hodge Rose
Gridhr awoke long after dawn and lay gazing at the blue snowlight reflecting through the open doorway of her cave-home. Her dwelling had a heavy door-skin but she seldom drew it shut, preferring to let the wind and sun, snow and rain visit her windowless home as they would. She had fallen into an exhausted sleep by her fireside last night, still wrapped in the hairy aurochs-hide she used for her wisdom-trances. Though it was less comfortable than her thick warm bed of piled pelts and fleeces, nevertheless she had slept well and deeply, and woke refreshed.
Gridhr stretched and yawned, running her hands through her long chestnut hair that gleamed with reddish highlights, heavy and smooth. Longer than a man is tall, it grew from her head, down the nape of her neck and all along her spine, hanging like a rich mantle down her back. Hazel eyes with gold and green lights gazed from the pronounced bone structure of her brow and cheekbones: two rocky pools of oak-browned water, shot with sunshine.
Today there was little sunshine to bring out the highlights of her hair and eyes. Gridhr stood at the doorway, bare to the cold touch of the late winter day. For all her great size and strength that warded her from weather as well as other harm, her body was shapely and well-proportioned, comely to any eyes. Absently she worked through her mane of hair with a comb of carved bone, while she mused over her recollections of the night before. A wild flight it had been, clinging to the trailing soul-hems of the dead seeress, greatest of all in the world – the great Vala herself. Gridhr’s impressions of her soul-faring were blurred, and she frowned in concentration, tracking elusive memories.
Aurgelmir: yes, she had seen him in his profound sleep, forefather of her race. She still felt the awe of that seeing. Shadowy through her mind flitted the images of Tree and Well, and the three holy keepers of Wyrd. Then a sense of foreboding: sorrow and loss, battle and blood. A death greatly mourned; a battle heralded by the ringing of Heimdal’s horn. And a wolf; yes, a monstrous wolf had been there, his maw gaping red. His jaws gaping, engulfing…..sweat broke out across her brow and shoulders. Engulfing…whom? Her mind shied away, not wanting to know. Flames had roared, swallowing the world. What a terrible vision! Again she felt the bright fragility of the world, a spark of light on the point of a needle: less than a breath would blow it all away.
The image caught at her and she peered more closely into her memory. A shining light, and a face smiling at her with love. Ah, how strange: a God’s face, strong and young, blue-eyed, dark-haired. Why had he smiled? She knew him not. As she watched, overlaid on that bright face was a somewhat older image of him, grim and bloody, eyes dark with strain and grief. She groped for a name, for knowledge of who he was. He tugged at her heart in a way no Ase should do, giving her a feeling of unease, of restlessness.
Overhead, two ravens swooped past on a gust of wind that wreathed her for a moment in a shawl of blown snow. Brushing her hair back from her eyes, Gridhr turned and strode into her stony home, suddenly caught by the fierce hunger pangs of youth. As she munched her barley loaf and strip of dried meat, she thought of the day and how she would spend it.
Hala, she thought. Her heart called to her foster-mother, wanting to share what she had seen and seek the older Jotunn-wife’s wisdom. A visit to Hala was what she needed; she would go at once and make the most of the day. Gridhr checked first in the neighboring cave to see that her small flock of sheep had provision enough for several days. The herd dogs could hunt for themselves. The young giantess then walked the perimeter of the caves, singing the warding-songs Hala had taught her to keep away the intrusions of beasts and curious strangers.
Her belongings taken care of, Gridhr turned to her dressing. She clothed herself in a straight length of woven scarlet wool, back and front pinned together at the shoulders with large brooches of bronze, leaving her powerful arms bare. Her thick chestnut hair was quickly braided, wound through with scarlet ribbon that tied off the end. After wrapping her leather belt several times around her waist, she kilted up the skirts of her gown, tucking the ends into her belt to leave her bare legs and feet free for walking. Finally, she put a large haunch of smoked meat in a bag, along with a cloth-wrapped bundle of dried herbs, as gifts for Hala. With the sack over her shoulder and her distaff, spindle, and supply of raw wool in a bag tied to her belt, Gridhr gripped her staff and set off through the snow.
Less than a day of uneventful faring through the snow-drifted pine forest brought her to Hala’s well-remembered dwelling. Hala, her aunt, had taken her in with motherly kindness, when first her father and then her mother had succumbed untimely during Gridhr’s adolescence. Gridhr’s brother Eggther had already been grown then, taken off for his coming-of-age farings through the world. Gridhr had not known how to reach him, though in her bereavement she had longed for his cheerful presence and his music that always soothed and heartened.
But her longing for her brother had faded as Hala’s kindness and her wise teachings gave Gridhr what she needed to blossom into adulthood herself. By the time a few years had gone by, Gridhr realized that she had gained rather than lost by her fostering with Hala, and was more than content with her lot. She knew, too, that her companionship was welcome to Hala. The older Jotunn’s husband Alfari was an avid traveler and it had been many years since he had been seen in those parts. Gridhr was glad that when she had come of age and set up her own home, she had found a fine dwelling-place close by, so her companionship with Hala could continue.
“Hello-oo!” she called outside Hala’s cave, rapping her staff against the flat stone before the doorway. “Hala! I’ve come to see you!”
The older giantess stepped quickly to the doorway, arms held out and her elderly face beaming. “Gridhr, my child! I’m so glad you came! Come in, come in.”
Hala’s two huge, shaggy hounds pressed up against the Jotunn-wives, tails wagging, adding their welcome. They had loved Gridhr when she had lived there not so long ago, and liked her even better these days when she bore with her the interesting scents of sheep and other dogs, not to mention the sack of smoked meat she carried now. Their inspection of her latest scents was prolonged and thorough, the blissfully intent expression in their eyes making Gridhr laugh.
“I see time has not dulled their sharp noses, foster-mother,” she smiled. “It takes them as long as ever to make sure they’ve missed nothing. I suppose they could tell me exactly how many sheep I have, if I knew how to ask them.”
“Yes, they’ve got a good few years left to them, I think,” answered the older Jotunn as they all moved deeper into her dwelling. “And I’m glad they’re such good trackers and hunters. ‘Tisn’t as easy for me to hunt these days as it used to be, and I need them. But come–I put supper on the fire some time ago, and it should be nearly ready. In the meantime, I’ve just opened a fresh keg of ale, and I think it’s one of my best batches. Come tell me your opinion!”
~~~
Gridhr stretched out on the soft pile of fleeces next to Hala’s fire, replete with supper and good ale. Many of the fleeces had come from her sheep; she felt glad that she could provide comforts to her foster-mother. Firelight flickered on the rough walls of Hala’s cave, reminding Gridhr of evenings during her girlhood, staring at the shadow-patterns and sinking into trance without knowing it. Fireshadow was the first trance-path Hala had taught her to tread when they had begun her lessons in seidh-craft, the skills of mind-magic and of soul-faring along the hidden paths of wisdom. Many Jotunn-wives were strong in this craft, and Hala one of the strongest, as Gridhr bade fair to be also.
Leaning her chin on her arm, Gridhr picked up an unburnt twig in the firepit and absently pushed the glowing coals together, staring into their crinkly-hot centers until the bright patterns were imprinted on her eyes. Hala finished putting the remains of their supper away and came to sit by her fosterling, stroking the long mane of chestnut hair lovingly with her rough, callused hand, as she too stared into the fire and remembered. Behind them in the shadowed cave the hounds snuffled and twitched in their sleep, dreaming of the endless chase.
“Do you remember, Gridhr, that little song we used to sing, when we collected twigs for the fire?
Big twigs, small twigs,
Pinecones and mast,
Jump into my basket,
Fill it up fast!
Branches and slivers,
Smooth bark and rough,
Jump into my basket,
Until I have enough!”
Gridhr smiled, listening to Hala’s old voice singing, deep and warm, with a pleasant underlying roughness to it that reminded Gridhr of the ancient voice in the vision. Then she frowned in concentration, trying again to capture the images, to untangle the meanings embedded in them.
“Hala, last night I thought to undertake a wisdom-trance. But no sooner did I find the path, then somehow it seemed that my soul was caught by another, and taken on a journey of wonder and terror.”
The old hand stroking her hair was still, as Hala looked at her in astonishment. “How is this, then, my child?”
Gridhr shook her head slowly, still staring into the fire. “I’m trying to understand, myself. Somehow, I knew that voice—the voice that was the thread tied to my soul and pulling it through a mighty vision. It was the Seeress herself, Hala, though I don’t know how I knew that. I recognized her voice, though I have never heard it, but only heard the tales of her.” Gridhr rolled onto her side, propping her head on her hand to look at her foster-mother.
“But the Seeress is dead, Gridhr!”
“Yes, I know that. Someone called her.”
“Who, then? Who would do that? And why?”
“Who do you think, foster-mother?” Gridhr turned again to stare into the flames. “Who but the one who always seeks to know? Who but the one who speaks with the dead?”
“Odin. You are saying it was Odin?”
“Yes, it was. He called her; I saw him, staring into her eyes. He bade her foretell for him.”
“And what did she foretell?”
Gridhr shivered, seeing again the flames engulfing the world. Her words were murmured and slow. “Sorrow she foretold, foster-mother: sorrow and battle, an age of wrath and woe. Flames reaching to the heavens. And then at the end, peace and wonder. I can’t remember all of it; only glimpses, and a tangle of feelings. A wolf….and a face.” She sighed heavily and fell silent, staring into the embers.
“A face, Gridhr? Whose face?”
“That is what I wish to know. Whose face?” Gridhr told her what she could remember: the shining face in the spark of light, the face grim with blood. “Tell me this, Hala: why should my heart warm to a bloody-faced Ase? An Ase whom I do not know? What does this mean?”
Hala was silent, her eyes hooded. Gridhr waited long, while the logs in the fire crackled and hissed, crumbling into embers, and a cool draught from the doorway tingled the soles of her upturned feet. Finally, Hala turned to look at her, still silent, her eyes shadowed and distant.
“What have you seen, foster-mother?”
“A young God, as you say. Young and strong, and very big….almost as large as one of our own sons.”
“But who is he?”
Hala looked at her in silence, her old eyes still hooded in mystery. “You must wait to learn this, Gridhr. It will not be long.”
Gridhr felt stirrings of impatience. “Tell me now, foster-mother: I want to know.”
A small smile crinkled the old face. “If I tell you now, Gridhr, then you will never have the answer.”
“What are you saying? If you give me the answer, then I will never have it?”
“That is the truth of it, Gridhr.”
“I don’t understand,” she muttered discontentedly. But in spite of sighs and hints and irritated looks, that was all the word that Gridhr could get from her foster-mother that night. Soon afterwards, she fell into a dissatisfied slumber, curled into the fleeces by the waning fire while the dogs snored at her back.
~~~
At noontide the next day, Gridhr was outside breaking logs into pieces for the fire. She had a large stack of them already broken and laid beside the doorway, ready for Hala’s use. As she paused to tie back a strand of hair falling in her face, she saw in the distance a figure swiftly approaching over the snow. Hala’s hounds raced out to intercept the stranger, barking fiercely. Gridhr could hear their voices change as they approached the newcomer, turning from threats to tones of welcome. She stood straight and waited to see who moved so swiftly over the snow toward her.
“It’s Skadhi! Hala, Skadhi has come to visit!” Gridhr and Skadhi were double-cousins, with their mothers being sisters, and their fathers brothers. The two had always been close, and Gridhr was delighted to see her.
Skadhi covered the intervening distance quickly on her long skis, the dogs bounding excitedly behind her, and swooped up to the doorsill outside Hala’s cave. Pulling her feet out of the leather straps, she upended the skis and clapped them together to remove the caked snow, then set them carefully against the outer wall of the cave. She greeted Hala and Gridhr with a brisk kiss on each cheek, smiling at them.
“Come in, Skadhi, and tell us your news!” invited Hala, pulling her into the doorway. “It’s been a long time since we’ve seen you in these parts. Are you visiting your father?”
“I suppose it has been a long time,” answered Skadhi vaguely. “I don’t know where the time goes….there is always so much to see, out in the world….”
“Yes, Skadhi the Huntress has no lack of things to see and do, I am sure!” smiled Hala.
“But yes–I am visiting my father. No matter where I go, it’s that windy crag at Thrymheim that calls my heart back home. It’s good to be there again, and to be with my father. We’ve always been close.”
“And what of your mother, Skadhi, my aunt Ividja? How fares she?”
“Indeed, Gridhr, I know not. Again this time I couldn’t find her. It’s hard enough to find her little hut in the depths of the forest, the way she moves it around. And harder still to find her, when half the time she is walking in other worlds altogether. I sought her but found her not. Only her owl came and called to me, as I sat at the spot where her hut was the last time but is not now. So I suppose she is well, wherever she is, and may the Old Ones bless her.”
As she spoke, Skadhi set the sack she was carrying down by Hala’s hearth. “A haunch of bear meat for you, Hala, and may it feed you well!”
Hala took up the bag, beaming. “My favorite meat, and hard for me to get these days, when my thews are not what they were. Thank you, Skadhi! You will stay to share this with us, I hope?”
“Yes, I’ll gladly bide for a bit. I’m pleased to see Gridhr here, too! And I should tell you: Hyrrokkin is coming also, following behind me. She’s always a good deal slower than I am.” Skadhi grinned wryly, thinking of the elderly giantess, powerful but lame in one leg, who rode a huge, wayward wolf-steed. “Her wolf was of stubborn mood again this morning, and had no wish to lope along with me. I left the two of them behind, glaring at each other. But they’ll get here soon, I’m sure. Hyrrokkin’s been over midwifing for Simul, Svadi’s wife: their first son.”
“Ah! Wonderful! And is all well with them?” Hala asked.
“It is; everyone is well, and he’s a big, strong baby,” Skadhi answered.
Gridhr smiled happily. “You know, Hala, that I’ve been asked to name this child, since Simul and Svadhi are among my best friends! Are you coming to his Naming, too?”
“Of course, Gridhr—would I not come to that?” Hala called over her shoulder as she began to cut up the bear haunch for stewing, while her hounds pressed as close to her as they dared, noses outstretched and twitching.
~~~
The haunch of bear was considerably diminished by the time the full-fed giantesses sat around the fire, watching the last rays of the setting sun give a rosy glow to the stone walls of the cave. A sharp wind had sprung up, keening faintly through the cave’s passageway, making the fire more welcome. The hounds and Hyrrokkin’s wolf worried at their bones in far corners of the cave, keeping wary eyes upon each other.
“After such a good meal and good company, I don’t feel like sleeping any time soon,” said Gridhr. “I feel more like working this evening.”
“What shall we work, then, Gridhr?” asked Skadhi, her ice-blue eyes gleaming through strands of pale hair falling across her brow.
Hala looked sharply at Gridhr. “Don’t you go looking for answers to last night’s question yourself, nor from our friends here, Gridhr,” she admonished sternly.
Gridhr was tempted to pout, but said nothing. She pushed the twig she held into the fire until it flamed, then held it up to her eyes, gazing into the little tongue of fire.
“What question is it, that you’re speaking of?” asked Hyrrokkin in her gravelly voice.
Gridhr recounted again what she could remember of her strange experience with the Seeress, while the other Jotunn-wives listened with intent faces.
“Portents, indeed,” said Skadhi soberly, when Gridhr was done. She stared into the fire, little flames reflecting in her pupils like tiny fires of Surt and his kin. “And this young God: you don’t know who he is?”
“No, I don’t,” said Gridhr, a trifle resentfully. “Hala seems to know, but she isn’t telling me. She said if she answers my question about who he is, then I’ll never have the answer to my question. I really don’t know what she’s talking about.”
All three of them looked at Hala, who only smiled a secret smile and went on staring silently into the fire.
Skadhi glanced back at Gridhr. “I guess she isn’t going to tell us, is she?”
“Clearly not,” said Gridhr. “Well…what about doing something else, then? With all four of us working together, we could go trolling in deep waters for some big fish!”
“Going after the Midgard Serpent, are you, my girl?” asked Hala teasingly.
Gridhr cast her a look of long-suffering. “I think not, foster-mother! What would I want with him, anyway? I know what I’d like to do, though. I’m curious about Skadhi’s mother, Aunt Ividja—I’d really like to know where she is, what worlds she walks now. Do you think, Skadhi, that she would mind if we sought for her together?”
Skadhi looked thoughtful. “I don’t think she would, no, though it is hard for me to say that I know her mind very well, after being parted so long from her. But her elusiveness has always seemed to me to stem not from any great wish to be secretive, but rather because her power is so great that very few of us can walk her path with her. Perhaps you are right, though, Gridhr: that with the four of us working together, we can go places you or I could not reach alone. I, too, would very much like to find my mother now.”
~~~
During the pause of anticipation that followed, old Hala gazed around the circle of firelit faces: Gridhr, strong and warm with the fires of youth, reflected in her chestnut hair and hazel eyes, in the glow on the sun-flushed cheeks of a shepherdess. Skadhi, called Ski-Goddess and Huntress: the fierce clarity of her soul showed in the icy beauty of her hair and eyes, the rangy strength of her long limbs. Hyrrokkin: old, stunted, lame, of uncertain temper like her wolf, but simmering with banked power nonetheless. Hyrrokkin’s hands, full of craft and skill, were folded calmly now upon her lap and her grating voice was still. And herself, Hala, eldest of all: she looked down upon the wrinkled skin of her arms and legs, covering heavy bones that still held their strength. Her wisdom and warmth, the goodness of her soul, made her a hearth of welcome to her friends and kin, and she knew that well. At her age, she thought with a wry smile, she held no illusions about herself any longer–neither about the good in her, nor about what was lacking.
The other three waited, eyes upon her expectantly, while Hala took stock of her kinswomen and collected her thoughts. As eldest and strongest in the craft, and as the householder of that dwelling, it was her place to lead them in their soul-faring.
“So it is agreed, my friends: we go to seek Ividja?” Firelit heads nodded, eyes gleamed with eagerness. Hala smiled to herself, savoring that glad anticipation. So must it be, she thought, the fire in the heart, the wings of the soul outstretched and reaching—so should a seeress embrace her craft with passion, as a woman clasps the lover of her soul. She scorned the timid, those who shook and trembled under the fearsome weight of powers uncalled-for and unwanted, whose minds were racked by ghosts of their own fears. But there were few such seeresses among the Jotunn-wives, Hala thought with satisfaction; the Man-kin women were more often so afflicted.
Frowning faintly in concentration, Hala fumbled at the belt of her gown, feeling the different bags that hung there until she found the one she wanted. Pulling the mouth of the bag open, she shook out onto her palm a mixture of dried herbs, smelling of summer. She crumbled these between her fingers and sprinkled them on the fire, breathing deeply as the flames released the herb-souls into the air.
“Friends of our faring,” she whispered, waving at the scented smoke to spread it over the Jotunn-wives, “gifts of the land: these herb-souls will strengthen and guide us on our journey.” Hala began a sonorous humming in her chest, breathing deeply and releasing her breath to hum again. The other giantesses followed, each in a slightly different key. Soon a complex interweaving of sounds filled the cavern, echoing from the rocky walls and building one upon the other: eerily beautiful, subtly unsettling. Hair rose on the hackles of wolf and hounds as they awoke to the sound, and rising up on their forelegs they joined their own higher tones to the humming. Two-legged and four-legged, they swayed together to the freighted notes. Hala’s cave became an ocean, waves of sound surging forth, rhythmically bearing the giantesses out upon an endless sea of wavering firelight and deep-toned voices now blended into one: a song singing itself.
Peering at the shadowed walls of the cave behind the firelit forms as she hummed, Hala watched for signs of the presences she sought. There, darker shadows began to form on the cave wall behind each Jotunn-wife: friends come to fare with them, to walk paths balanced upon the rims of worlds. Behind Skadhi, two wolf-shadows loped, moving in some different dimension, ears perked forward and tongues lolling in anticipation. Hyrrokkin, too, was shadowed by a wolf-form, this one draped with the shade of a large serpent riding its back, head upraised and alert, forked tongue flickering. Turning her head toward Gridhr, Hala caught sight of the hulking bear-shadow behind her. Around its feet a lithe otter frisked and scampered, weaving between the bear’s broad pads.
Hala smiled at the otter’s antics, then closed her eyes and gazed inward. She had no need to turn around and look at the shadows gathered behind herself. She could sense the nearness of her spirit-friends who had accompanied her through so many years of soul-faring. The wind from the osprey’s broad wings fanned her hair, sending white strands fluttering around her face. The stag’s noble beauty brought, as always, a lift of wonder to her heart. And the brisk pertness of the little wren, perched with its tiny claws tangled in her hair, made her smile tenderly. Small the wren might be, but its energy and its curiosity about all the doings of the worlds made it a worthy companion indeed for a seeress’s explorations.
~~~
The giant voices sank lower, becoming breathy whispers: faint, hoarse sounds like distant wind keening through serried crags. Gridhr felt her consciousness sinking deeper, following their whispered chanting, twining and curving around the invisible pathway that led her toward other worlds. Her soul-skin, detaching itself from her body, leaped and twirled, gaining energy for her soul-flight and giving her the now-familiar spinning sensation as she sank into full trance. Her soul flew with swiftness and power, accompanied by the other strong souls that surrounded her, and by the spirits of their animal friends.
Gridhr soon felt a warming sensation on her right side, along with a gentle, insistent call tugging at her awareness, and turned to follow it, accompanied by the other Jotunn-wives. Vague forms coalesced out of the featureless mist surrounding them, becoming more distinct by the moment. Cloaked forms appeared, several of them: the souls of other Jotunn-wives, it seemed. Gridhr peered closely at them. Standing slightly forward from the small group stood a tall giantess, slim for her kind but broad-shouldered, with long ice-blonde hair and ice-blue eyes that mirrored Skadhi’s. Ividja, thought Gridhr. The apparition did resemble the tall, intimidating giantess, the sister of her mother, whom Gridhr had seen at Thrymheim when she had visited during her childhood. Ividja’s eyes, smiling, paused briefly on Gridhr’s face before passing on to focus on her own daughter.
“Skadhi,” Ividja said, her voice sounding pleased, “you’ve come to visit, along with our kinswomen. This is a good thing, my daughter!”
“A good thing it would be, if you visited us more often in Jotunn-Home, Mother! We miss you and wonder about you.” But Skadhi smiled as she spoke, and moved closer, holding out her cheek for her mother’s kiss.
The questions that Gridhr had wanted to ask Ividja fled her awareness as her gaze was drawn to another of the figures beside Ividja. Cloaked in soft black wool, with black hair wisping out of her hood to surround a face that held more sweetness than most, this smaller giantess drew Gridhr’s eye like a magnet. Gridhr wondered who she was. The black-cloaked Jotynja smiled at her, and looking into her eyes, Gridhr felt the other giantesses fading into the background of her awareness. Up close, Gridhr saw that the giantess was very small for her kind, and appeared young but with an aura of great age and wisdom about her.
“Gridhr,” the giantess spoke, “I am Sveipinfalda, the mother of your mother Eisurfala.”
Gridhr was astonished. “Grandmother? How is this? Are you still among the living? My mother spoke so seldom of you; I had thought you were dead.”
“No, child, I’ve not yet fared out of this life. But I live alone and secretly, so I may seem to have done so, to those who once knew me. I withdrew many years ago from the settled areas of Jotunnheim, and live in the shadows of a distant forest. But I do live, yet.”
Looking at her grandmother, Gridhr felt a longing to be with her, to know her better. Sveipinfalda smiled on her with warmth, seeming to understand Gridhr’s feelings without any explanation.
“Soon, child, I will call you to come to visit me. Even now, I called you to come and hear me, through your curiosity about Ividja. Did you realize that?”
Gridhr shook her head, bewildered. A movement at Sveipinfalda’s side drew her attention: there, one of the other strangers was coming into slightly clearer focus, though she remained somewhat wavering and blurred.
“Atla,” said Sveipinfalda. “She is your other grandmother, the mother of your father Aurnir. She, however, is among the dead in Hel; she died many years ago. Yet she has things to teach you, too, once you have learned how to hear her.”
Gridhr stared at Atla’s shade, and wondered how and what this grandmother would teach. She was so full of questions clamoring for expression that her tongue felt paralyzed. Glancing rather wildly around, Gridhr saw that the final figure of the group was becoming clearer to her sight as well. She gazed at Sveipinfalda for an explanation.
“Vardrun, wife of Asvidhr,” said Sveipinfalda. “She lives even farther out on the edge of the world than I do.”
“The wife of Asvidhr?” gasped Gridhr. “Asvidhr who gained the runes for Jotunn-kind?”
“Indeed,” affirmed Sveipinfalda. “Asvidhr, too, still lives, though none could ever find the two of them unless they were called to do so. Asvidhr gained the runes, and Vardrun wards them; only those who are chosen by the two of them can learn to wield the runes of giant-kind. Asvidhr for the Jotnar, Dvalin for the Dwarves, Dainn for the Elves, Odin for Gods and Men: these are the masters of the runes, the ones whose gifts must be sought by those who wish to understand rune mysteries.”
Gridhr felt overwhelmed by this encounter; her head spun and she felt the bond with her physical body calling her to return as her energy began to falter from the shock. Yet she wished to stay with this warm-hearted grandmother of hers, and looked longingly toward her. Sveipinfalda smiled.
“Don’t worry, Gridhr. Very soon now I will send out my call to you, and if you follow it faithfully you will find me. I want you to come and stay with me for awhile; I have much to teach you.”
“Can’t I come now, Grandmother? I’ve no wish to delay my journey to you.”
“Not now, but soon. There are some things which must happen first, before you set out on your journey. When the time comes, I will call and you will hear.”
Sveipinfalda’s final words echoed strangely in Gridhr’s ears, a sign that her trance was fading and her body calling her to return. She groped in the mist for the hands of her companions, found them, and allowed her soul-skin to fall downward, seeking its natural path back to its home in her body. Her last sight was of the furry faces of her friends, bear and otter, peering quizzically at her as if to ask why she left them so swiftly.
~~~
Next morning Gridhr stirred as she began to wake, and was surprised when her restless arm bumped against another warm body. It took her a few moments to remember that she was in Hala’s cave, not at home alone in her own, and that she was surrounded by the fur-wrapped forms of other giantesses. Pushing her hair back from her eyes, Gridhr stared blankly at the rock ceiling above her and collected her thoughts.
“Skadhi?” she called softly.
“Mmmhmrr??” came a muffled sound beside her.
“Are you awake?”
“I am now,” Skadhi growled, but there was a grin in her voice. “Where did you go last night, anyway? You were with us at first, but then you faded away. I could tell you were somewhere nearby, but I couldn’t seem to touch you.”
“Did you see other forms there, besides your mother?” Gridhr asked her.
“Sort of….I could sense there were others there, but they weren’t at all clear to me.”
“Well, that’s where I was—talking to them—the other ones.”
“Who were they?”
By this time, the other giantesses were awake as well, listening keenly for Gridhr’s answer.
“Did you see them, foster-mother?” Gridhr asked Hala.
“I did, Gridhr,” said Hala, but she said no more, and the others waited for Gridhr to speak.
“First and foremost was Sveipinfalda, my mother’s mother, and yours as well, Skadhi.”
“Sveipinfalda! I thought she was dead!” exclaimed Skadhi. “Mother very seldom spoke of her, and spoke as if she were long gone.”
“That’s what I thought, too, Skadhi, but Sveipinfalda says she is still among the living, secluded in a distant forest where she withdrew long ago.”
“Why did she do that?”
“I don’t know; we didn’t have time to speak very much. Maybe for the same reason your mother is always disappearing….who knows?”
“What did Sveipinfalda say?” Hyrrokkin asked.
“After she introduced herself, she introduced me to two others who were with her, two very surprising others.”
“Who?” the others asked in unison.
“First was my other grandmother, Atla.”
“I thought she was dead, too!” exclaimed Skadhi again.
“She is.” A blank pause followed while this sank in, then Gridhr resumed. “Her shade was vague and sort of quivery, she wasn’t very clear, but she was certainly there.”
“Her soul is a powerful one, and ancient,” Hala mused.
“Yes, she is very old; my father Aurnir was much older than my mother, and his mother was quite old when he was born. You will be even more surprised by the third one who was there.”
“Who?”
“Vardrun herself!” Gridhr said in wonder.
Even Hala looked intrigued at that, who seemed to know everything. Hyrrokkin’s hairy eyebrows shot up in astonishment, while Skadhi fixed Gridhr with the intent stare that always seemed to penetrate to the bone.
“Are you sure?” asked Skadhi.
“That is what Sveipinfalda said, and I see no reason to doubt her. Then Sveipinfalda told me that they have things to teach me, and that soon she will call me to come to them. I wanted to go now, but she said I have to wait for something to happen first…..just as I have to wait, to find out about that young Ase,” said Gridhr, with a return of her disgruntlement. “ ‘Wait, wait, wait’! Well, at least it looks like there is something worth waiting for!” she said, cheering up. “What did your mother have to say to you, Skadhi?”
“She wants me to come visit her, too. Hmmm…..I do wonder if they’re all off somewhere together. It certainly looks like that, doesn’t it?”
“That it does, younglings,” said Hyrrokkin. “I have an idea where, too.”
“You do?” asked Gridhr, surprised. “Have you seen them, then?”
“No, I haven’t, nor heard, either. But there is somewhere that’s a fine place to disappear into, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where they are.”
The younger Jotunn-wives looked questioningly at her, while old Hala sat nodding and staring into the fire.
“Jarnvidhi. Iron Wood.”
Skadhi drew a deep breath. “Iron Wood…..yes, that would make sense. I have sometimes traveled there myself, and I know you have spent years there, Hyrrokkin. I don’t know the limits of that wood, if it even has any. I rather wonder whether it does.”
Hala shook her head slowly, her eyes distant. “It may not, indeed, Skadhi—at least, not in this world. Hyrrokkin is right: that is a good guess as to where these hidden Jotunn-wives may be.”
“Sveipinfalda said she will call me when the time is right, and show me the way to her, so I guess we will find out, and sooner, rather than later, it seems.” Gridhr hugged her knees to her chest and grinned in anticipation, a grin that was returned full measure by Skadhi. “And we may be way-companions, too, cousin! What do you think?”
“My skis are always ready, you know that! We wait only for the call,” was Skadhi’s answer.