Norse Poetry Challenge

The fun never ends with #Norsevember! After stuffing your TBRs with all manner of Norse-themed books, you are now invited to join the skaldic poetry contest, which will be judged by Joshua Gillingham, author of The Saga of Torin Ten-Trees and designer of the card game Althingi: One Will Rise, and Emily Osborne, author of the poetry chapbook Biometrical and whose poetry, short fiction and Old Norse-to-English verse translations have appeared in journals and anthologies including The Literary Review of Canada and Barren Magazine.

Skaldic poetry featured over one hundred distinctive structured verse forms, each of which had its own strict set of rules. One of the most popular forms was dróttkvætt, also known as court meter.

Each verse should consist of four lines.

Every line must have exactly six syllables.

Odd lines must have one case of full-rhyme (shown in italics; e.g. ‘wave’ and ‘gave’).

Even lines must have one case of half-rhyme (shown in italics; e.g. ‘cut’ and ‘bit’).

Every pair of lines must have triple alliteration occurring twice in the odd line and once in the even line (shown in bold; e.g. ‘sword’, ‘sea’, ‘sailed’).

You can read the full article by Joshua here, which is absolutely fun and insightful! But to participate in the challenge, simply craft a verse in the form described above and reply to this post with the link. You can also post it on social media with the hashtags #NorsevemberSkald #Norsevember.

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Speaking of Norse poetry, I would like to take this opportunity to share the poem Simone Skov Petersen crafted for The Prophecies of Ragnarok, the Norse myth urban fantasy trilogy I co-wrote with Meri Benson.

Simone is a good friend of ours from Denmark and is a fantastic writer and poet. When Meri and I were starting to write Monster Ridge (book 2) I found myself constantly referring back to the events of Ragnarok — which in our series was supposedly spoken by the Norns in verse form (because, you know, Vikings and poetry). Then I thought, why not have a version of our own, perhaps even make a song out of it as I did for Silje's releasing of the trapped souls to the afterlife in Hotel Fen (book 1)?

I'm not much of a poet though. And, well, I love a good excuse to collaborate with other creatives. So I talked to Simone and asked if she would like to write the equivalent of the Norns' prophecy for our series, and she agreed!

Thus you will find lines from this beauty peppered all throughout Mist Gallows (book 3), as well as in some of the other books, like in the upcoming Nameless Queen.

First, it was winter

In January, then it was winter

In March, then in May

Then August, it is winter in October

It is winter now, it is winter

Winter, three years, winter

All things end

And all must die

Watch as the leaves decry

The branches that bend

Toward the sun

Who holds his heat to his chest

And of light he knows none

He hears not the sacrificial goats bleat

And the sun that hid

Will be found by one wolf

Who devours it

And all songs of daylight

All songs of the hour

Later, the nightwolf

Will stop singing at the moon

Rather Hati will soon

Jump the last distance

And mangle its surface

So all light seeps out

Like luminous blood

Alas, the celestial bodies

Will be ravished

Alas, they will be unrecognizable

So the stars

Will disappear

Sink in foggy night

And be gone, begone

While in the deep

The earth will shake

And upon the mountains steep

There will be no dawn

All things end

And all must die

No leash will hold the dogs

No lock will keep out the thief

Or keep in the threatening things

All doors will burst open

All gates will spring open

The things we hid become visible

The things we held at arm’s length

Invincible

Open stands

All the lands

And from below

Hel will rise

On a wave of Dead

And all that dies

Will at long last shed

The fogs of afterlife

Like the coat of a sacrificial sheep

Under the whetted knife

But no sacrifice will prevent

The giants of Jotunheim

From standing up, towering over

As they dissent all orders

Of the other worlds

The ship that sails them

To the end of the world

Is made from dead men’s hands

And Jormungandr, the serpent

Will snake its way back to land

And Loki whose bonds

Have broken with the rest

Also rides on Naglfar, the ship

To the end of the world

There will be a field for this battle

Vigrid will be its name

And from the south

Surt will lead the other sons

All will meet

All will congregate

All things end

And all must die

Let the horn resound

Let it sing among the golden walls

There will be no advice to be found

Odin shan’t be told by any advisors

How one avoids death

Yggdrasil knows, no one knows

It shakes and it moans

Everyone who has lived to fight

Will gather to fight again

Vigrid will be their destination

And it lies around them, final

All will meet

All will congregate

Odin with Fenris

Thor with Jormungandr

Frey will fight Surt but swordless

And Surt will make his the first

Of multiple deaths

Tyr will take on Garmr

Then they will take each others’ lives

Loki and Heimdall will do the same

Thor kills Jormungandr

Only to drown in its venom

Fenris will not let Odin go

But swallow him whole

And he will be torn in halves

By Vidar, Odin’s son

All things end

And all must die

Asgard

Midgard

Jotunheim

And Niflheim

Become bonfires

In the darkness

There will be ashes

But out of them comes only

More death

Men

Women

And children

Will die

Giants

Monsters

Birds and beasts

Will die

Only the sea is left

For the earth sinks into it

And leaves it alone

All things end

And all must die