Skadi, Snow Queen

White as opals is the day.
Winter has buried deep in snow
Homes, Hills, Mounts of Midgard.
Smoke is rising,
Stoves are burning,
Hearths heat home and heart.

Folk are merry, at
Frith do they sit,
Sit and sing, the fur-wearers.
Staff-bearing old Father who
Stands near the fire,
Blessings brings to shelter sharers.

Village is cozy, nestled in
Valley snow laden.
The distant woods wilder by far.
While ravens fly,
Wolves do roam
Paths where prints of no man are.

Yet raven and wolf do
Roam the wild not alone.
Snowshoes stalked this way.
Thjassi, jötun, you see
This woodland vættir?
Nay, no eyes ye have by day.

Frosted countenance,
Frigid beauty rare.
Winter wraith among the snow.
Skies with clouds laden,
Skadi, flying now yet in.
Freeze follows where you go.

Thjassi's daughter great
That High Allfather dared
Not nerve of thee e'er doubt.
A giantess mighty
Æsir would fell
Before being beaten and cast out.

Under jötun's eyes
Ullr's lady, thou
Bring blizzards of snow and ice.
Encampéd here long,
Enduring no curse,
Hoarfrost huntress hits in trice.

Snow Queen, heavenly,
So highly regarded,
Flying fleet to ev'ry land.
Across the worlds
And o'er the seas,
So stretcheth Winter's hand.

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Permalink Reply by David Feldman on February 16, 2009 at 1:41pm: This is a piece I began on Christmas Eve 2008, finishing it on Christmas Day. It's done in Ljó∂aháttr form. Obviously, it's about Skadi, one of the winter goddesses. There's a few other references, too. (i.e. Odin, the "staff-bearing old Father who stands near the fire," Ullr is Skadi's eventual husband after Njord, and Thjassi's eyes, which Odin placed in the night sky as two stars.); ▶ Reply to This