(This is the beginning of my novel, Gridhr Jotun-kin. All the currently-written chapters are listed under the menu title “Gridhr Jotun-kin: A Serial Novel.)
Winifred Hodge Rose
I remember giants in ages past;
Once they called me one of their kin.
I remember nine Worlds, nine Jotunn-wives,
And a tall Tree, rooted deepest of all.
Gridhr stirred, uneasy with the burring drone of the ancient voice in her head. This was not at all what she had thought she was seeking, when she had entered her wisdom-trance only a few moments ago. The hoarse voice, half-whispering, half-chanting, pursued her down the soul-paths, holding her mind with an iron grip.
Naught was yet, in Ymir’s day:
Not sand nor sea, nor cooling wave.
Earth was not yet, nor the high heavens,
Only gaping emptiness, nowhere green.
A dim grey light, sourceless, surrounded her now. Orienting herself with difficulty in the oddly distorted space where she seemed to be floating, Gridhr saw below her an immense, sleeping body that could only be Aurgelmir Giant-Father, called Ymir by Gods and men. He appeared to take up all the room that existed: though there were no visible boundaries around him, yet space and time seemed to stop beyond the extent of his mighty limbs. A shiver of awe ran through her.
Peering more intently, Gridhr realized that there was yet a greater being present, so huge and so vague in outline that she could barely grasp its image. Audhumla, she thought: the Ur-Mother Herself in the form of a cow. Cloud-grey, swathed in mist and steam, Audhumla straddled the sleeping giant and let down her streams of milk to him like the twining strands of Godafoss, waterfall of the Gods. And he, unconscious of the life within him, yet opened his bearded mouth to receive her blessing. Audhumla gazed down at him, dark eyes deeper than all the wells in all the Worlds.
Gridhr hovered awestruck over the scene, scarcely able to believe that she was given to see this, the beginning of the Worlds. In the back of her mind, the crone’s voice chanted on, telling a tale of wonder.
South came the Sun, Moon’s bright companion,
Reached her right hand over heaven’s rim,
Then bright grass grew from the stony ground.
Within her body Gridhr felt the seeds of life stirring, yearning to answer the call of golden Sunna, to spring forth into her holy light. The Worlds and their beings unfolded before Gridhr’s sight: made of Ymir’s flesh, nourished by Audhumla, shaped and given soul by the Gods. The ancient voice became yet deeper, more ponderous.
An Ash-Tree I know, Yggdrasil its name,
Tall Tree watered from a milk-white Well.
Gridhr felt the vast presence, too huge to be fully seen: Tree whose branches hold all the worlds there are, the axis of being. Wind soughed through the Tree, scattering drops of dew from its boughs. Some fell onto the emerald grass below, others with a bright, chiming note dropped into the Well itself.
Come three maids, cunning in knowledge,
From the holy Well beneath this Tree.
Urdh one is called, Verdhandi the other,
Carving the rune-tines; Skuld the third.
Layers they lay, lives they choose,
Knowing all wyrds by the holy Well.
Dim in the gentle mists surrounding the Tree’s great roots, Gridhr saw the cloaked forms gathered close around the Well, bent to their work of tending the Tree with the life-giving water and white mud from the Well. I greet you, Wise Ones, she whispered, who shape our lives and the wyrd of Worlds. Gridhr’s soul lingered there with them, glad in their presence: these stern teachers in the craft of the seeress, in the ways of wyrd. But the call of the crone drew her away and she tumbled through the unformed mists, following that burring drone, a thread leading onward into mystery.
Alone I sit as the Old One comes,
Ygg of the Æsir looks into my eyes.
Momentarily Gridhr caught a glimpse of that fierce, one-eyed face peering into her own, his long hair and beard and his blue cloak whipping in a wind that Gridhr could not feel.
Why do you question? Why test me?
I know all, Odin: Where your eye lies hid,
Valfather’s pledge in Mimir’s dark well.
Seek you more wisdom, or what?
Gridhr felt hair rising on her nape and spine at the mention of Odin’s name and his wisdom-pledge. Who was speaking to him and of him? Whose voice was this, chanting in the back of her mind?
I see for Baldr, for the bloody God,
Odin’s child: I see his hidden wyrd.
In Fen-Halls, Frigg weeps
For Asgard’s woe; all-wise mother mourns.
Seek you more wisdom, or what?
Seeress’s words, dredged deep from the secret halls of Time: a bitter tale to tell, it seemed. Baldr, brightest and most beloved God: even the giants would grieve if ill befell him. Gridhr stirred restlessly in her trance, twisting her massive body away from the burning knowledge told in the crone’s voice.
A cock crows in Gallows-Wood,
Flame-red one called Fjalar.
For the Æsir, Gold-Comb answers loud,
Wakens the warriors in high Valhalla.
Below the earth still another calls,
Soot-red rooster in the halls of Hel.
The hound bays louder by Gnipa-cave,
Six-Strand tears and Ravener runs free.
Wisdom I know, I see further ahead
To the terrible doom of the striving Gods.
Chills pursued one another along Gridhr’s spine as the dread vision unfolded. She knew now that her soul was soaring helplessly in the wake of the greatest of seeresses, gripped by the power of that mighty mind.
An axe-age, a sword-age, shields are cleft asunder;
A wind-age, a wolf-age, while the world is falling.
Mimir’s sons at war-play; Wyrd now aflame
Calls from its long sleep the ancient Gjallar-horn.
God-Warder winds it, white Heimdal on the bridge;
Yggdrasil shudders, the World-Tree moans.
What of the Æsir? What of the Elves?
Jotunn-Home groans; the Æsir take rede.
Dwarves roar before their rocky doors:
Princes of the mountain walls, shouting their rage.
Seek you more wisdom, or what?
Gridhr held her breath unconsciously, waiting to hear Odin’s response. Surely even Odin would not wish to hear more?
Comes then Frigg’s second grief,
When Odin wars against the Wolf:
Then must fall Frigg’s most beloved.
Indeed, bitter must this rede be to Odin’s ears, thought Gridhr, tossing back and forth in cold horror. Odin himself, fallen to a giant wolf in battle? She bore little love for the Æsir, kin though they were, but such a downfall was too evil a portent. All the world seemed poised on the point of a needle, a captured spark of light too fragile to hold onto life. As she fixed her eyes on this spark, willing it to live, it seemed to grow and brighten, holding within its glowing core the face of a young God. Gridhr heard the rising chant of the seeress continue as the shining, unknown face gazed into hers.
Then strides great Vidar, War-Father’s son,
Against Slaughter-Beast. Wrenching jaws asunder,
He stabs through the heart of Loki’s fierce child:
Valfather’s kinsman claims his vengeance.
Bewildered, Gridhr glanced back and forth between the shining face hovering in the light before her, and the bloody face of battle-mighty Vidar Wolf-Slayer, shown by the seeress’s vision. Indeed, they were the same face, the same God. The two images of the face, one bloody and grim, the other shining with a bright love, merged into one, filling Gridhr’s vision. She felt her heart warm toward this young God with his cloud of dark hair and his bright blue eyes.
A strange thing indeed, she thought, for a God to smile at me from a spark on a needle’s point, and stranger still that my heart should warm to him, Ase though he is. Æsir and Jotnar—we tend to go our separate ways. As the seeress’s harsh voice rasped across Gridhr’s mind again, the spark and the God-face winked out, along with her distracted thoughts.
Dark the place where Sunna was devoured;
Earth sinks deep under the sea.
Flames lick upward over World-Tree’s limbs,
Fire strikes hot against heaven itself.
Gridhr’s eyes closed in pain, feeling in her own flesh the fire gnawing at the limbs of World-Tree. The flames of Surt Fire-Demon and his wild kin, overrunning the world, flickered against her closed eyelids and stole her breath with their heat. Panting in agony, she felt her flesh turn crisp and black, peel away from her bones and fall to dust. A hot wind blew, scattering her ashes and empty bones over a wasteland of non-being, while her soul drifted tetherless for a timeless time.
I see the Earth arising again
Out of the waters, green once more.
An eagle soars over rushing waterfalls,
Hunting his fish from the mountain crags.
Unsown fields will grow good fruits;
Ills are healed as Baldr heads homeward;
Then will Odin’s kinsman choose the runes.
Sons of two brothers dwell widely
All across the windy world.
Seek you more wisdom, or what?
Gridhr felt the healing waters on her parched bones. As the fields sprouted green, her flesh reknit itself to her bones, cloaking them again with her fierce giant’s beauty. She floated in peace for a time, still feeling detached from life and the world.
Now I will sink down.
The seeress’s hoarse whisper echoed in her mind, seeming to speak to her alone. As the seeress sank back into the dimness of quiet death from which Odin had called her, Gridhr too sank into the soft darkness of sleep, followed by the distant cry of ravens.