Seer Of The Darkness Of Death Poem by Franc Rodriguez

A darkness of evil thus befell upon the clans,
within such a ruthless and wearisome path.
It came from the land of the Saxons and Jutes,
and spread swiftly upon the strands of the sea.
A shade of blackness had therefore reached,
within the thorps of the Frisians with wrath.
And a threat that had brought upon the clans,
a frightening seeming to afterwards dree.
They fought boldly against the keeper of death,
but yet the darkness did not wane.
Forsooth there was no rough shard to break,
or was there to be a body to slay.
And within the kinsfolk it had no name at all,
and knew only how to gar pain.
Within the year many had fallen to this illness,
and many had come to scurry away.
And it harried the freemen and it was becoming,
more and more an unyielding nightmare.
Within the athelings there was no true answer,
to this harrowing and agrising threat.
And the men, women and sucklings throttled,
in the bleakness they could no longer bear.
The dearth of food and water brought a drought,
upon the kinship they would never forget.
Beyond the shadow of death was a brave soul,
who could rid them of this wretched darkness.
The elders had gathered where the darkness,
had not reached the dwelling of the ward.
Among the athelings and the kings of the clans,
they would moot as they sought steadfastness.
And they chose within the men young heleths,
to seek the God Mimir beyond the Midgard.
A bodiless God who dwelt in a darken abode,
beyond the peat bogs and swarthy swales.
There the young warriors were to find the lair,
amidst the slithery snakes and wizen trolls.
And the snakes sidled as they waded through,
the murky waters within their slippery tails.
Amidst the broad hellish mist of the dark night,
was the dreadful sight of forsaken skulls.
With their swords and their shields at hand,
they saw the sprawling boughs of his guise.
And he heard their footsteps as they came nigh,
amidst the mire that they would straddle.
Then a glowing dim light shone upon his guise,
where whiteness was seen through his eyes.
'Thou hast come to me to rid the darkness of death.
The answer dwells within a riddle.'
One of the athelings asked, 'What riddle doest thou,
speak of that I do not understand my lord? '
The riddle that forever dwells within the world,
and its manifold lands.”
“I am afraid that I do not fully understand,
your words my lord blind one like the sword.”
'And it is an old riddle whose answer is found,
within thy dales onto thy strands.'
And the god then warned the froward heleth,
'But thou shalt only answer once'.
He said, “It is beyond the world of the darkness,
and it is what the night fears the most.'
The young warrior began to wonder not once,
not twice, but instead thrice.
And then he saw how the gleam of the waters,
within the abode shone like a ghost.
'It is the light of day. It is the light of day,
that shuns the darkness away, ' he would yell.
'Forsooth young heleth, and if the Gods be kind,
they will bestow upon thy lands the light of day! '
And he thanked the god and within his haste,
they yode home to break the lingering spell.
There within the abodes of the underground,
they sought to make the darkness go away.
And when they reached the abode of the ward,
they told the elders the words the god bespoke.
They knew in their trow that the Gods were,
to answer the call of a bold warrior in flesh.
Therefore the heleth then came from the throng,
and from below he rose into the evil that awoke.
And amidst the blustery winds and the darkness,
he yelled, 'Bestow upon us, the gift of light afresh'.
The blustery winds dwined afterwards quickly,
and the darkness had gone in the ripples of time.
The Gods had not forsaken them and the thorps,
were freed of the death that came yond the wath.
Upon that gleesome day an ashen white dollop,
would overhele the dales along with the rime.
The elders will speak of the tale of the god Mimir,
the seer of the darkness of death.