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the works of jonathan blackbow

"first drottkvaett revised"

Wotan’s warriors struggle
Fight two foes, yet fight well
Tyr’s teeth strike down one foe
Aegir yet takes his toll.

Fresh-killed foes stare sightless
Finally they are struck down
Weary, wounded victors
Whisper in the dim dawn.

Go well, friends here fallen
Fate now speeds you elsewhere
Valhőll ope’s its halls wide
True warriors, ours lost here.

Sinking ship lies silent
Broken, battered, listing
Frightened, fearful of the
Frothy water waiting.

Morbid moaning wind blows
Mere rags ship’s sail now
Carmine pools shine sullen
Snapped spars once strong as yew.

Somewhere sun is shining
Wives come and loves to shore
Wait you days and nights long
Your men come home no more.

explanation (razo):

This poem is obviously “First Drottkvaett” with the corrections made to it that I didn’t realize I had screwed up at the time. There were numerous places where the rules of drottkvaett weren’t followed correctly. I have since discovered (from reading The Elder Edda) that inconsistencies were fairly common in drottkvaett (since even THEY admitted this poetry form was a pain in the butt); however, I wanted my drottkvaett to be as accurate as possible. One thing that I hadn’t attempted up until this point was kenning (metaphorical use of words to describe something) because there were just barely enough words in the English language to write in this style to begin with, let alone the use of kenning. I did some digging on godchecker.com and found that there were enough ways to use the Norse pantheon to describe a few things, and rewrote the poem to reflect that. Additionally I cleaned up the rhyme scheme as closely as I could to the “official” drottkvaett rhyme scheme.

Website ©2006 Kevin Brock, poem ©2003 David Ritterskamp.