Day 21, another milestone moment! I didn’t manage to stay on-prompt yesterday, today I have cunningly combined yesterday’s instruction to write using kennings with today’s prompt to re-tell a myth or fairytale. So here is a Norse myth, incorporating some Norse-style kennings.
The Stone That Slew The Magician Otr
Were I a stone of the road, I would have known to edge away
from the tread of the trouble-reapers, like all the stones of Midgard.
But I was idling at the river-hem, lazed back on sand,
like an otter I was half and half, my belly sun-warming.
I didn’t call Loki to reach for me and turn me into a flying axe,
I didn’t want to be death for the happy midstream water-tumbler.
Had I voice or breath I would have cried out there and then –
That is no more an otter than am I! That frog-chomper you think
to stew, he is shape-shifter, hidden wizard, heir to power! He is Otr,
and his slayer will pay a heavy price! Loki, be satisfied with the silver rope
of trout now fringing your shouldered pole, or you’ll lose twice that in gold!
I could not speak. I had no choice but to be the end-blow
of a god’s unlucky throw. Bleared and drowned in remorse, I saw
through the glass hall of the river, the mighty Otr skinned,
and the gods depart unwittingly to lay son-flesh on his father’s table.
Even this water won’t deafen me to the righteous roar to come,
the screams for bloodgold enough to bury a beloved pelt.
So consequences run ahead, for where can Loki find ransom
but by forcing the underwater cave of the dwarf-king?
I can see the entrance glint through the pike-patrolled weeds,
the future shining with it in fragmentary lights like warning beacons.
Here comes greed, and curses, and the death of lovers.
Kirsten Luckins 