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Post by Nepty on May 7, 2014 4:58:17 GMT
behold, the myth! finally compiled.
Ritter Svjarti Mjoreiheim
In the early ages, when the world was young, but the gods now were older than a hundred nations together, it is said that there was no Aesir, and instead, no matter if men died in their bed, or on the field of glorious battle, all departed souls found their final resting place in Mori, the cold, bleak, land of the dead, drifting as pale shades among the endless tombstones. Volsungr, the Warbringer, god created and worshiped by the norsemen for his favor in battle, saw in the pits of Mori, thousands of souls who had died honorable deaths, and was angered.
He drew up his armor, and donned his helm, Hjalti, which protected him from all evils, and picked up his axe, Othir, that had slain godling and demon alike, and went to find Mori, but could not find the black gate of the land of the dead. So he journeyed to Arkive, and the wardens would not give him entrance, so he battered down the doors with his axe, Othir. Once inside, he called for the Goddess Sophazia and asked her where Death’s Door could be found, and she said “The land of the dead is not for you to enter, warrior.” And when he told her of his errand, she said “The Counting King does not submit to force, warrior, remember this. Not even war may slay death.” And Volsungr was mightily confused, and took his leave, believing her wisdom worth little.
And then Volsungr went to Haarvald, as the norsemen call the god of freedom, and said to him, “I wish to free the souls of the valorous dead” and Haarvald gave to him a knowing smile and said to him “I would free each soul if I dared enter the land of the dead, but once free, what then?” and Volsungr pondered upon this, and Haarvald took wing and left him there.
And finally, Volsungr went to the Hunting Grounds, and sought out Tarya, but he could not find her. Instead, he found a lone wolf, who told him that Tarya hunted the Basalisk of Arypha. Volsungr followed the wolf, and it led him to a stream, where Tarya whetted her long knife. Volsungr removed his helm and spoke. “I would have passage to the land of the dead, and I have been to many of our siblings, but they fear Toth, and do not venture into Mori. But surely you, hunter, have hunted in the land of the dead?”
Tarya then replied. “I know the way to Mori,” she said, “But it is a fool’s errand you depart upon, warrior, for that realm slays the living who enter, so you must go alone, and the restless wights of the dead will give you grief and visit misery upon you.”
“I would suffer that and more,” said Volsungr, “For the sake of honor.”
And Tarya spoke. “I have hunted the Basalisk of Arypha, a beast from the southlands that kills men by seeing into their souls and making them still, and who’s poison bite is enough to harm even gods such as ourselves. My arrows break upon it’s scales, and my best knife has shattered from use. Four times, I have gone forth to slay this beast, once with arrows, once with knife, once with sling, and once with club, but it defies me. Deliver to me a way to slay the Basalisk of Arypha, Warbringer, and I shall give you passage to the land of the dead.” Volsungr returned to his hall, where it floated among the clouds, high above the world of Lorestir, and for six days and six nights brooded upon a way to slay the immortal serpent. On the morning of the sixth day, Volsungr stood, and journeyed deep into the Blackstone mountains, where there he waited for a storm, and when lightning struck the highest peak, he smote it with Othir, and the point of the peak came crashing down. The lightning made it glow and hiss, and while it was still hot, Volsungr struck it with the flat of his axe, and shore pieces from the severed mountain head, until it was a thousandfold times sharper than a razor, and as hard as steel. Then, he went to the deep forests, and from the tallest ash tree, he carved a spear-staff, and with these, he made a spear, and named it Fehu, and carved a thousand thousand minute runes upon the blade and haft, that it might be magical. He took this spear, and returned to the Hunting Grounds, and there he presented it to the godess Tarya, who ventured into the wild and hunted the Basalisk of Arypha, and fought it for a day and a night and finally struck it through it’s heart with the rune-spear, Fehu, and it’s poison blood spilled out and became part of the spear, which Tarya still wields to this day.
His part of the oath fulfilled, Voslungr then told Tarya that she had a bargain to deliver upon, and she agreed. “Take my horse,” she said “Ragnar, his name is, and he will bear you to the land of the dead, for he knows the way.”
Volsungr thanked her, but he was not done. He took his knife and skinned the body of the Basalisk of Arypha, and from its scales, he made a mail that would never be pierced, and wore it over his body, in protection from the evil humors of the land of the dead. Only then did he mount Ragnar, the six-eyed steed, and the god-horse sprang away swiftly, and for a day it rode, until it came to a black gate, through which filed grey shades, heads hung low. Volsungr dismounted from Ragnar, and bid he return to his master, and with no small conviction, unslung Othir, and stepped through death’s door, into Mori.
MJORIHEIM
When Volsungr stepped through into the land of the dead, he saw before him, on a great grey plateau, endless gravestones, among which the shades of the dead prowled. Above the stones and the drifting masses, vultures circled in a black sky. Volsungr, wary, began to walk, where, he did not know, for no god nor living mortal had ever been to the land of the dead. No god but its master.
The journey took him across the plains, and along the way, he met no living soul, and the dead were no company, for they did not seem to be there, only the suggestion of a drifting arm in the mist, or a face in shadow. But he saw them all and judged them, noble warriors who fell in battle, and good kings, slain in contests of honor. The entire way, the death-wights, the evil dead, hissed and spat at him in his mind, but none could do him harm, for the skin he wore, of the Basalisk of Arypha.
At the foot of the Obsidian throne, he halted, and upon the top, sat the cowled old lord, the king of death, quill black and parchment yellow, in his pale, skeletal thin hands, the quill scratching across the parchment. Volsungr did not speak, but stood there, gazing up, and neither did Toth raise his covered eyes from the paper when he opened his thin, dry mouth.
“What soul intrudes upon the land of the dead? Who of the living disturbs the rest of the eternal sleepers?” “Hear me, gravelord,” spoke Volsungr. “I would free the souls of the honored dead from this bleak fate, and give to them an afterlife worth living.”
And Toth continued to write. “This is the way of things. The dead will remain here.”
Volsungr was greatly angered, and he reached for Othir, but then, finally, did he remember the words of the goddess Sophazia, and remembered that words might achieve what battle would not, and stayed his hand, and did not strike at the elder brother, but spoke again. “My domain is of war, and honor, and those souls fell at my order, and thus they are of my realms. They must be loosed from this realm of black misery, and given rain and sunlight, and the joy of battle, and another chance at life.”
But Toth spoke thusly. “If you take all men of war, I shall be sorely lessened, for that is a great many lives that I should tally, lost. And should you allow those fallen to live again as you wish, the tally would be injured even further, for a single soul could live countless lives.” Volsungr allowed that, and said “Then I shall send those I find wanting to you, to count as you please.”
Finally Toth raised his eyes from the paper, and they were bound and covered in cloth, and he gazed at Volsungr for a bare second and then returned to tallying the dead. “But know that I will not allow you to take the honored dead again ever after this. You must claim the fallen before they arrive here, for once the dead come to me, they are mine, forever and always. And know that I will not have your chosen in this realm, nor will I count them among the tally of the dead, for if a single soul lives a hundred lives, the tally will be broken. Know that you are barring them forever from night eternal.”
And Volsungr was silent for a long while, until he finally spoke. “I do not think that a warrior, in this life, or his next, or the next after that, would ever choose to spend it as a grey mist, wandering the bleak stones here. You may keep the dishonored, but the glorious dead are mine, now and always.”
Toth did not say a word, but simply went back to his writing, and after a while, Volsungr knew that their conversation had ceased, and would not resume if he stood there for another hundred years, and so Volsungr took his horn, Wotun, and winded it long and low, calling for the honored dead.
And when he left Mori, a host of warriors, bright, and rejuvenated, and youthful once more followed Him out of those black gates, and to his halls, and remembering Haarvald’s words then, he created Aesir out of the body of the slain basilisk, and raised his hall from the ruins of longships, where the glorious dead drunk mead and wine, feasted, slew each other, and lived lives of plenty and glory for eternity after that.
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