Post by Crow • ᚴᚱᚬᚴᛦ on Oct 13, 2024 9:12:12 GMT
Kráks saga
Crow’s Saga
Víðarr hét sveinn.
The boy was called Víðarr.
Hann var sonr nǫkkurs skuggálfs ok Geirþrúðar, dóttur Einars jarls í Norheimi.
He was the son of a certain shadow-elf and Geirþrúðr, daughter of Jarl Einarr of Norheim.
Hon var læknir mjǫk fróðr ok víss, ok þau bygðu á Norheimi í Máneyjum.
She was a very learned and wise healer, and they dwelt in Norheim in the Moonshae Isles.
Fǫður hans hafði til Heljar langr genginn aptr.
His father had long gone back to the Shadowfell.
En er Víðarr var fimmtán vetr gamall, móðir ok sonr sigldu í vestr.
But when Víðarr was fifteen winters old, mother and son sailed west.
Þá bygðu þau á Dǫgunlandi, á þorpi við skóg mikinn hét Blóðlœk…
They then settled in the Dawnlands, in a village by a great forest called Bloody Creek…
That story, which shall sit in the shelves of the next Harbour by the Starless Sea, is yet unfinished. It will not be for a very long time, and the man knows as much. A thousand years hence, long after Dorian and Melody and Azalea and all those people have become dust in the wind, he will return and resume his eternal search for knowledge in those honeyed halls. Perhaps he’ll even raise a horn to their memory when he’s there.
Admittedly, he is still sour about his prey slipping from his talons. Allegra — though she was weapon-slain and therefore rightfully his — now lies in dear Fate’s respite. What a waste. Well, no matter. There are many other seeresses out there in the world, living or buried.
The business with the Harbour is finally done, and the man got most of what he wanted from it. Good. Now his work can begin in earnest.
It’s a calm autumn afternoon. Agnes has gone to the stream to wash the clothes of the wealthier halfling families in the village, taking little Frida with her. The twin boys Bernard and Leo are in the vegetable patch next to the cottage, on their hands and knees, pulling out the cabbages that will be thrown into tonight’s pot of stew.
The man sets down the firewood he’d been carrying on his back. He plants his axe on the ground, hands resting on the steel head. “Lads. A word, if you please.”
The two auburn-haired boys look up and quickly wipe the dirt from their hands, leaving brown stains on the front of their trousers. Having knelt on the wet ground of the vegetable patch, the stains soon immerse into the tapestry of splotches and patches, telling a story of hard work at a young age in the countryside — a study in brown.
“Yeah? What is it, Vidi?” The boys approach eagerly, Leo cradling a cabbage head that will soon be the family’s dinner and Bernard pushing the pruning knife into his coiled rope belt as if it were a sword.
“Both of you have seen thirteen summers now. You are no longer boys — you are ready to become men, and to become men, you must train in the art of war.”
They exchange glances with each other.
“We are men…” Leo pipes up first, his pubescent voice breaking.
“Totally…” Bernard rests his hand on the leather-wrapped handle of his little knife.
“…and we are ready…”
“…but Mum isn’t going to like it…”
“…but, like…”
“…you are going to talk to her, right?”
“…right?”
Old Grim scoffs. “Men make their own decisions. When this village gets attacked too, will you run to your mother to ask for permission to defend yourselves, or will you stand up and fight? Where I come from, every boy is given a knife to carry at the age of twelve, for every man is expected to fight for his family, his honour, his life…” For a brief moment, he thinks back to Víðar, vomiting after the first time he put an arrow in someone’s head. He was weak. “Continent boys… Too soft for their own good. Well, lads, are you soft?”
The boys — because no matter what else they may tell themselves they are — nod, first hesitantly, and then with vigour as the man continues. Sometimes one is what one believes themselves to be. And for those who have survived the nightmare of Bloody Creek, belief often was all they had left.
“Yeah, we are men.”
“We wouldn’t run.”
“Not again.”
“Next time, we will be strong.”
“I have a knife now!”
“I want one too!”
“Can you teach us, Víðar?”
“Yeah, how do you fight?”
“Proper, like?”
“Can we have armour, too?”
The twins have crowded in and are tussling for his attention as the sun decides to hide, tired of the day and the cycle of violence. The man smiles. He’s seen this many, many times over the centuries: the forging of the first link in the chain that will bind them to Death. But it never gets old. Agnes will be worried, sure, but the surprise gift of a flock of sheep will quickly smother her protestations.
“We start tomorrow at dawn, with the sword and the shield. I expect great things from you, me lads.”
Young King
rode with his arrows;
he shot arrows,
he killed birds.
Then a crow said to him,
a crow sitting on a high branch:
“Why do you kill birds,
young King?
It would be better
to mount up on your horse,
and kill men.
“I know two chieftains
with rich halls, they live nearby,
they have bigger inheritances
than you have—
they know how to steer ships,
they know how to sharpen blades,
they know how to kill men.”
Co-written with Ian
Rigsþula st. 44-46 translated by Jackson Crawford
