Speak, Thor! What seest thou at Odin’s altar?

THOR

A mighty hunter and a twisted dwarf

Make sacrifice; rivals they seem, in feud,

And claim the hand of Thordis, thy priest’s daughter,

And the priest cries on Odin for a portent

To choose which of the brothers shall be bridegroom.

ODIN

Lo, then, my portent! We ourselves, we four,

Shall be those rival brothers, priest and bride;

Loki and Thor shall ravish them with death

That we, in resurrection, may take on

Their bodies as our mortal vestiture.

For I will act with you this mystery,

Dreaming myself the priest of mine own shrine;

And Freyja, child, thy goddess heart shall beat

Within the heart of Thordis, mortal maid;

Thy boundless spirit, Baldur, shall be pinched

[Pg 28]

Within the gnarled limbs of the stunted dwarf,

 Prev. P 37/198 next