Giles Watson's poetry and prose
Ash
Resurrecting an old song lyric. Let us hope that our scientists can resurrect the ash tree after our business-types, lawyers and politicians have done their best to destroy it. How exactly do we expect to live in this country without our world-tree?
Ash
An ash-tree spreads called Yggdrasill,
High-standing, soaked and shining,
And from her drip the dews of dawn
Fate’s flux from wells refining.
Three maidens come there, three all-knowing,
From the lake which licks the tree;
One is Fated, one is Future -
These their names- the third: Must-Be.
They scribe their laws, they steer the lives
Of fettered slaves, sons of the free.
Kormt and Ormt, Kerlaugar rivers:
Thor wades each day their waters wide
When he goes to watch and judge,
The Yggdrasill ash at his side.
The bridge afire, burnt with flames,
The waters boil, and woe betide!
Glad and Golden go with Glassy,
Silvertuft and Skeidbrimir,
Goldtuft, Lightfoot, Gone and Gleaming,
The Æsir’s horses, and Sinir:
These they ride to sit as judges,
And Yggdrasill is standing near.
Three roots grow in three directions
Beneath the ground from Yggdrasill;
One for the dead, one for the living
One for frost-giants, growing still.
Ratatosk the running squirrel,
Scampers over Yggdrasill;
He drags a message to the Dragon
Each day: it is the Eagle’s will
Four Harts there are, with heads thrown back,
Four Harts who browse her highest boughs:
Dain is one, and one Dvalin,
One Duneyr, one Durathror.
More serpents sleep ‘neath Yggdrasill
Than any fool could ever fight:
Grafvitnir’s minions, Goin and Moin
Grabak black, Grafvollud white,
Ofnir, Svafnir, odious serpents
Yggdrasill’s bare branches bite.
Yggdrasill she groans in anguish
More than any man can know:
Harts bite her branches, mould makes marks,
And Nidhogg bites her from below.
Yggdrasill, she stands and shudders!
The great tree groans, the giant grins,
Down roads to hell they run, in horror,
Devoured by fire- demon’s kin!
Song lyric by Giles Watson, 2001. A paraphrase of the Poetic Edda: ‘The Seeress’s Prophecy’, 19-20, 47; ‘Grimnir’s Sayings’, 29-35.
Ash
Resurrecting an old song lyric. Let us hope that our scientists can resurrect the ash tree after our business-types, lawyers and politicians have done their best to destroy it. How exactly do we expect to live in this country without our world-tree?
Ash
An ash-tree spreads called Yggdrasill,
High-standing, soaked and shining,
And from her drip the dews of dawn
Fate’s flux from wells refining.
Three maidens come there, three all-knowing,
From the lake which licks the tree;
One is Fated, one is Future -
These their names- the third: Must-Be.
They scribe their laws, they steer the lives
Of fettered slaves, sons of the free.
Kormt and Ormt, Kerlaugar rivers:
Thor wades each day their waters wide
When he goes to watch and judge,
The Yggdrasill ash at his side.
The bridge afire, burnt with flames,
The waters boil, and woe betide!
Glad and Golden go with Glassy,
Silvertuft and Skeidbrimir,
Goldtuft, Lightfoot, Gone and Gleaming,
The Æsir’s horses, and Sinir:
These they ride to sit as judges,
And Yggdrasill is standing near.
Three roots grow in three directions
Beneath the ground from Yggdrasill;
One for the dead, one for the living
One for frost-giants, growing still.
Ratatosk the running squirrel,
Scampers over Yggdrasill;
He drags a message to the Dragon
Each day: it is the Eagle’s will
Four Harts there are, with heads thrown back,
Four Harts who browse her highest boughs:
Dain is one, and one Dvalin,
One Duneyr, one Durathror.
More serpents sleep ‘neath Yggdrasill
Than any fool could ever fight:
Grafvitnir’s minions, Goin and Moin
Grabak black, Grafvollud white,
Ofnir, Svafnir, odious serpents
Yggdrasill’s bare branches bite.
Yggdrasill she groans in anguish
More than any man can know:
Harts bite her branches, mould makes marks,
And Nidhogg bites her from below.
Yggdrasill, she stands and shudders!
The great tree groans, the giant grins,
Down roads to hell they run, in horror,
Devoured by fire- demon’s kin!
Song lyric by Giles Watson, 2001. A paraphrase of the Poetic Edda: ‘The Seeress’s Prophecy’, 19-20, 47; ‘Grimnir’s Sayings’, 29-35.