Forgotten Ground Regained

The Last Valkyrie

… and here there are witches and Valkyries … Wulfstan, Address to the English, A.D. 1014
… the gods … flow in and out of one another like eddies on a river … C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces
Woman, by her weird lured,waiting stands, for the land’sking, so called, and his longcraft, wading deep laden.With fighting men freighted,Forth they sailed to northward;Come to coast at Hastings,Keen and armed to do harm.
Maid she has lived, has lovedthe lore only of war;wælcyrige, weaves with skillwar-men’s doom on the loom. When she heard her liege-lordlay in need of such deeds,her mind was, might to lend,making spells for his sake.
Runes she wrote, but in vain,Wrought not all as she thoughtbut stopped, her spell stilling,standing idle-handed.A sweven, by the god given,grants her to view trulyher king’ fated future,nor fight against Weird’s might.
Harold felled she beholds:hoar apple-tree – nay, more –in a shrine her folk shunis shown a tale well-known:a god given to be deadgreets the king at meeting,welcomes him to Wælheall,worthily slain on earth.
Knowing the aid needednow, that fate would allow,manlike rode the maidenin mail, her brand handling.That hard ancient order’sarts are now departed; the last lies at Hastingswith her lord, slain with sword.
Illustration by Arthur Rackham for "The Rhinegold and the Valkyrie", 1892
Pat Masson's Notes to "The Last Valkyrie"
Metre: derived from (an inadequate knowledge of) Drottkvætt, the Old Norse court metre
Line 11: wælcyrige = Valkyrie
Line 12: Cf. Njal's saga, ch. 157, in which before the battle of Clontarf Valkyries are seen weaving on a loom with men's heads for weights and human intestines for weft and warp.
Line 21: sweven = vision
Line 26: hoar apple-tree -- Worcester Chronicle entry for 1066.
Lines 27-32: Cf. (1) The legend of the image of the crucified Christ bowing its head to Harold as he prayed before the Battle of Hastings; (2) Heimskringla, Ynglinga Saga, ch. 10: "The Swedes believed that (Odin) often showed himself to them before any great battle. To some he gave victory; others he invited to himself; and they reckoned both of these to be fortunate."
Line 31: Wælheall = Valhalla
Copyright © Pat Masson, 1994. Published for the first time in Forgotten Ground Regained: A Journal of Alliterative Verse, New Series, Issue 2, Spring, 2024, with the permission of her family.
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