[Dream Gate] [Poet Glas]

The Warrior's Tale

After a decade of playing with poetry, several years of performing Irish and Norse stories, sagas, and poetry, I finally gathered the nerve to start writing my own performance pieces. Customs differ between peoples; so, too, does the practice of war. A cattle-raiding Scotsman used to the strictness of clan warfare might find the wholesale slaughter of a Norse raid quite unappealing. He might also find that moral decisions are not often easy.

A younger Scot than I am now,
A riever I once was
Forsaking Alba's golden strands
Aboard a Danish prow

Our Viking band set sail to East
With blood and money lust
We came at last to wooded lands
Whose Wend and Rus gods feast

We landed near a Wendish town
And hued it Thor's own beard
With smoke and ash and sullen shouts
We razed it to the ground

Into the bird's own home I fled
I ran into the wood
And sought relief in silent trees
From screams of recent dead

When time had sailed a smallish while
I lay 'neath leaves and fewn
And woke to find a Wendish lass
With Iv'ry skin and smile

She made to give herself to me
A pretty gift it was
But stupid Pict-brood that I am
I tried to make her flee

She stayed, and we did naught but lay
While moon and stars arose
And spent the night in quiet smiles
And chaste but subtle ways

When sun arose and blackbird's song
Awoke me in the dawn
I was alone beneath the fern
Not knowing what was wrong

I found out soon that Wendish lass
was nothing but a ghost
A poor young girl who drowned herself
When love did not come fast

Had I but loved that lost girl
I'd set her soul aside
And let her rest down in her pond
Where twilit waters swirl

A loss now at both love and life
I've set my soul aside
I storm all shores with war and death
To hide my guilt in strife

I curse all gods, both Scot and Dane
And spite those of the Wend
And cast my lot on dolphin's road
no longer sure I'm sane

copyright 25 Feb 1986 (AS XXV) by Earle B. 'Glas' Durboraw

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