Lay of Aelur
Land of my mother’s / scourged by men
You posture proudly / of your propriety.
Child of Jord you / yearn towards the Well,
To me stone seeking / suddenly come.
Your kind killed / this kin of Assabet.
Bloated and flooded / bound by her neck,
Slipped the water wight / from your words.
Blood begat blood / three bairns did come.
My brother stands / stifled and shackled,
My sister, shores / shining and fouled,
And me, tumbling slowly / towards the tents of dawn.
We three do stay through / terror and tears unbowed.
Strife’s apple trees / awoke me, Aelur,
Scouring the stones / from my seething back
Secreting the wight in the / smith’s stockade
Burying my bones / and burdening grain’s sheaf.
Yet this giver of gold / with gems silvered
Has bargained for frith / of family and wight-folk.
Land of her lips / offers lager and mead,
And ships of strong ale / to seat-mates pledged.
Five bands of pebbles / picked from the ship of fishes,
Thorp by panel form / the Foretelling-father’s staves,
One left to her hearth / holding my breast’s apple,
That frith and fellowship / flow under Glory and Mask.
This is my first attempt at writing a piece in vaguely alliterative verse, as well as trying to incorporate some traditional kennings. But, more importantly, it is the fulfillment of an oath to one of the local wights.