wyrdwind

Brightly Burning

The Aesir waged a brutal war

against the elder, peaceful Vanir.

They who espoused such supposed

virtues as power, knowledge, law and order,

thought to exert their will upon “undeveloped” land,

their force and appetites excessive, coercive.

And though the Great Lady wove terrifying battle magics,

the like never seen before or since,

their adversaries stole her elusive mate,

the beloved Odr. His name

our only remaining clue to his significance,

meaning divine madness, passion,

and poetic inspiration. Spirited away.

His disappearance broke her heart.

So the two tribes of gods cut losses

and exchanged hostages,

Freyja and her twin among them.

One pantheon.

She took a “husband,”

though retained her own hall

equal in splendor, and claimed half the dead.

It is said

where she wept, her tears turned gold or amber

upon earth or water as they fell. She never

gave up her search. No matter

how long or how far

she would find him.

Seer. Shapeshifter. Mistress of Magic.

Chieftain of the Valkyries.

By all accounts an exquisite beauty.

Known for inducing

fertility, lust, obsession and love. Rode a boar

into battle and a chariot pulled by enormous cats

when at leisure, a bashful gift from half-giant Thor.

If she didn’t just take flight as a falcon herself.

Below

the Dwarves or Dark Elves

had evolved from the maggots

which hollowed out Ymir’s corpse,

developed humanoid form, their skin pure

obsidian. Would turn to stone

if exposed to sunlight. Their kingdom

no less great. There was plenty to do,

inner workings to maintain. Other

kinds of bright.

She traversed the realms nine, bided her time,

and did descend to admire their civilization

at its height.

Seamlessly carved stone, luminous ceramics,

metals wrought and cast crescendo

throughout their intricately tiled subterranean network.

They could emerge anywhere in the world

and relay messages in an instant.

Souls may depart, but bodies were their sacred domain,

transmuting that which upworlders regarded waste.

Freyja met with their four finest craftsmen in secret,

the greatest masters to ever live,

who had produced

their pinnacle achievement as a race.

The Brisingamen.

A necklace that contained

the primordial radiance of creation

in its fiery gems.

Deeply forbidden magic.

She offered gold and silver as a matter of course,

riches beyond their wildest dreams, infinite bounty,

but these four masters declined.

Only one thing could be so precious

as to persuade them to part

with their proud people’s masterpiece.

The pleasure of her company

with each of them individually,

one night apiece.

A woman’s reputation precedes.

How her true love got his name

in the first place.

So these four came to know

the ecstasy of the unmade

reborn each dawn, took the knowledge

to their graves,

spared no effort

to bear her waves, to lap them, saliva slicked

as earthworms taste through their skin. Pulsating

nerve ends.

Only one person

walked out of those bedchambers

and clean-up was a nightmare.

Freyja got what she came for.

The Aesir were furious.

Claimed her an unfaithful whore,

debated the diplomatic incident,

and it mattered not because

no one could deny her now.

Her necklace made the wearer

irresistible, not even gods

were immune to its pull. Imbued

luck upon any in her favor by default,

whipped fertility into lurid fervor,

swarms, swaths driven to mating frenzy,

toxic blooms, bloody conflicts

propelled by senseless greed and glut—

perhaps over a magical earthblood black—

too many fires for the Aesir to address.

They simply didn’t have what it took.

Their taste for war soured in their mouths,

and when Freyja whose tongue

was honeyed golden hypnotic

inquired as to the whereabouts, any last known

location of her lost love,

not god nor creature nor mortal

in all the nine realms

could withhold their knowledge.

Banished to the borders,

at the end of place and time itself,

Freyja found her love again.

Odr had become

an enormous sea serpent, a dragon.

This was her man.

Just as beautiful as the day they met.

Oh he still remembered, no necklace required,

his flesh would always know her. He fretted not

her wake of beds and bodies,

for in order to reunite

she first had to survive.

And she fretted not this new girth, terrible length,

for there was no shape she knew not

the pleasure of.

They began. From there until the body

of a man once more, Freyja’s devotion

did inform until the wild architecture of ardor,

their golden genome,

broke the curse.

She brought him home.

False-husband Tyr had learned

in her absence the hard way,

the weakness of rigidity, heavy handed

interference, how order, law, and justice

would amount to nothing but destruction

without a woman’s freely given love.

Finally, these foolish young gods

were ready to listen

instead of talk.

There is no King in Asgard.

There is the Lady of the House

and her beloved Wanderer,

and never let it be said

I don’t give credit where it’s due:

a whimsical, sensual stranger, God

of the dead, first gasp as a babe, breath itself,

poetry of spirit, swift-rhymed and riddle-tongued,

the cries of a lover well served, the voice

of your ancestors long passed, oh you do not ask

this tricksy coot for straight answers,

the original fairy godfather,

and fuck if his is the only gibberish

gets her quiverin’, has what it takes

to entertain a Magic woman. The Goddess Herself.

You’ll be takin’ some lumps he turns up to help,

like ah shit here we go again, he speaks

binding words, favors the homeless,

outcasts and shamans, vagrants to kings,

kings to robbers, wants to see how far you’ll go,

and last he’s

perch of the ravens Thought and Memory,

indeed this is how Odin got his name—

the Real Him. You’ll know now

when he’s being conflated

with unseated Tyr, as seen in the word

tyrant if ill-dignified.

Freyja instilled the art

of peace-weaving, frith, the custom

of kittens gifted to every bride

as both mousers and affectionate ambassadors,

kindlers of the hearth. These new heathen

women managed resources and were permitted

to throw any scoundrel out, even cut off his cock

should such a thing

inflict sufficient grievance, seek to rise

above its station.

Put simply, Freyja shows us

the purpose of life is pleasure, abundance,

as the heady rush

of her dizzy party-boy Odin

who always delivers in bed and grants

the heart’s tenderest wishes

to those worthy. Their poetry sufficient.

Her colors are fire, blood, and gold because

women are your wealth. Change your luck. And joy,

true love,

is precious beyond measure.

Your only win condition.