Poems

Preview of a New Rúnatal

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It’s been a while since I’ve posted. Though I haven’t posted, I’ve still been writing poetry, and a lot of it, and I’ll share some draft pieces today. What I’ve been writing lately will ultimately be a 729-line poem in the Anglo-Saxon style (the style debuted here on my blog), a New Rune Tally (aka “Rúnatal en Nýja” if you prefer Old Norse), inspired by the Rúnatal þáttr Óðins, which is Hávamál stanzas 138-145. (My poetic translation of that traditional Rúnatal is here.) A sizeable chunk of it will consist of tallies of certain things, with nine lines devoted to each item in each tally.

The whole poem, when finished, will be too long to fit in a blog post. Nevertheless, it will make its way to the world eventually, when it has been sufficiently revised and edited. The portions I preview today from the various tallies should be thought of as draft versions that are subject to change. Continue reading →

Eirik’s Hymn and Some Updates

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Cædmon’s Hymn is a nine-line piece of Old English Christian poetry that uses kenning-like phrases for its deity, such as heavenly kingdom’s warder, glory father, eternal drighten, and mankind’s warder. My thanks go to Mary Ellen Rowe, who pointed out that if you transpose these Old English kenning-like phrases into Old Norse, they sound a lot like kennings for certain Old Norse gods. Upon hearing that, I realized I could make an extremely loose “translation” of Cædmon’s Hymn that heathenized it completely. However, it has ended up as piece that should be considered “inspired by” Cædmon’s Hymn rather than as a translation of it. Also, I’ve named the gods directly in most cases. Like the original, it is in nine lines of continuous verse — which is also just like the sequence of prayers from my last two posts. Here is the result of that experiment, which I suppose could be called “Eirik’s Hymn.” 🙂

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Prayers to the Gods, Part 2

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Woot! I’ve finished NaPoWriMo on schedule, having written a poem a day for each day of the month. As mentioned in my last post, I chose to write these 30 poems as prayers to various gods, goddesses, and wights of Asatru, each exactly nine-lines in the style of Anglo-Saxon continuous verse. Today I present another three prayers from the fifteen that I wrote in the second half of the month. They are prayers to Forseti, Jörð, and the Ancestors.

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Prayers to the Gods, Part 1

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April is the time of National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo), an annual event for encouraging poets to write a poem a day for each of the 30 days of the month. It was modeled after the more famous National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). (See the site of NaPoWriMo’s creator or the Wikipedia page for more details.)

This year, I decided to join in the fun for the first time and take up the challenge myself. I’ve resolved to write a poem each day of the month and chose to write the thirty poems with a common theme and structure. Each is a prayer to one of the gods or goddesses of Asatru, and each is exactly nine lines in the style of Anglo-Saxon continuous verse that is not broken into stanzas. (I first featured this meter over a month ago in my “Beer in Midgard” poem, and it is like my usual fornyrðislag except for the changes in line and stanza breaks.) The prayers are written in plural form, and like the Calls to the Gods on this blog, they (usually) can be changed to singular without damaging the meter or the sense. It should be noted that prayer is not a requirement in Asatru, and many (most?) Asatruar don’t pray. I think it is something that individual Asatruar can experiment with if they feel so inclined. However, beyond such brief remarks, this blog is not the place to enter into the debate on the matter.

As I prepared this post, I was halfway finished with NaPoWriMo, having written 15 poems, one on each of the first 15 days of the month. Today I present three prayers from those written so far. They are prayers to Iðunn, Thor, and Eir.
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Convert to the Cthulhu Cult!

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After much intense study, I have determined that today the stars are right, and that the return of the Great Old Ones is immanent. As for the Ragnarök, I don’t know when that will be, but it doesn’t matter: the Great Old Ones will clearly get here first. All will be destroyed, for we are mere insects compared to these incomprehensible beings, and they regard us no better than the average human regards insects. Thus, I have converted my religion to that of the Cthulhu Cult. In the end, this won’t spare me from their destructive return — it simply means that I’ll get to enjoy some power, prestige, and good times before I too am destroyed at the end of it all. I encourage my former fellow heathens to join me in my conversion instead of attempting a futile resistance. Thus I am using this blog to further the cause of expanding the Cthulhu Cult.

How shall that be done? Though I have converted to the Cthulhu Cult, I still have the skills in poetry and runes that I have acquired, and I feel it best that I use these skills in service of my new masters instead of discarding them. So today I first provide a poetic Call to Cthulhu for those who would honor and serve Him, followed immediately by a rendering of a key phrase in runes that His worshippers may carve as an act of pious devotion which will also add to His power.

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Beer in Midgard

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Here I present a poem on subject much enjoyed by heathens and others: beer. Its style is a bit different from previous poems. Rather than have stanza breaks as is usual for Norse styles, it runs continuously without them, which was the typical Anglo-Saxon style. Otherwise, the meter the same as my usual fornyrðislag. Also, rather than splitting the long lines into visible half lines (as one will see in Tolkien’s Fall of Arthur, for instance) and/or putting those half lines on separate physical lines (which is typical of my usual fornyrðislag practice and as one will see in Tolkien’s Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun), I simply give the long lines with no internal breaks, though the astute follower of this sort of poetry would probably have no trouble figuring out where the breaks would go.

As there are no stanzas to count, the length is reckoned by counting the number of long lines. Thus, this is a 25-line poem, making it the equivalent of a little over six stanzas of ordinary fornyrðislag. The title of this poem is “Beer in Midgard.”

Beer, the bright drink, beautifully colored,
of malted barley and bitter hops,
is the brewer’s bounty and a boon to Man.
This yeasty ferment of Yule-tide cheer,
heathen feasting, and happy hours,
Continue reading →

A Short Valentine’s Day Poem

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Since I noticed that a certain secular holiday was approaching this Friday, I decided I would write a short poem related to it. My poem, of course, has some of that Northern flavor that my readers have come to expect.  It is four stanzas of ljóðaháttr. Its title is “A Short Valentine’s Day Poem.” A word of warning: there is word of vulgar language after the cut at the end of the poem.

Is it love lurking
or just lusty thoughts
in this frigid February?
From Roman roots
is the ritual day
of venturesome valentines.

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Calls to Other Beings

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Once again, it is time for some of the most practical poetry that this blog features: calls to various beings from the lore. Although unusual and unexpected, the calls here may be found quite useful by some. Today I present calls to Ancestors, Others, Dag, and Nótt. Like all previous calls, these are also two stanzas of ljóðaháttr each (with the stanza break removed as before). A call to the ancestors is self-explanatory. The call to the Others is a sort of catch-all for friendly beings who might wish to attend the ritual but who are unknown and/or have not specifically been named in prior calls. (That is, the call is designed to follow specific calls to other named beings. It may not make much sense to use the call by itself.) Dag and Nótt are the Old Norse words for Day and Night, although Snorri’s Edda treats them as supernatural beings and provides a genealogy for them. There are probably few who would hold blóts to Dag and Nótt, but some might wish to try reciting the calls on a daily basis at the appropriate times as part of a personal practice.

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Audio for Gunnlaðarljóð

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Today brings my tenth audio recording to this blog. This time, it is Gunnlaðarljóð, which was posted as text last November. My recitation uses the original Norse pronunciations of the names instead of the anglicized versions.

Here is the downloadable file of me reciting the poem:
Eirik Westcoat – Gunnlaðarljóð

And here is the inline player:

Enjoy! Feel free to share the file. For details, see the Creative Commons link below.

This post is:
Copyright © 2014 Eirik Westcoat.
All rights reserved.

The linked audio file of Gunnlaðarljóð is:
Copyright © 2014 Eirik Westcoat.
Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives License.