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.
wyrdwind 