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Sailing
The Seas Of Fate Commentary
Part II - The Songs
1. Dreaming of the DawnMy original idea for this track was to have actual voice characters narrate the conversation at the beginning of the album. The logistical practicalities of doing this in old Norse made it impossible to do this correctly, and probably would have come more cheesy than anything, even more so if I had done it in modern English.
The two characters Vidar "Far Ruler?" and Halvdan "Half-Dane" were chosen to signify two types of thought. Vidar, named after Odin's son who slays the Fenris wolf and is to survive Ragnarok, represents the true spirit of the elder gods, their culture, and heritage. It must be preserved at all costs, in this world and the next. Even though all seems lost, he is determined to take up one final quest to seek the answers in the ways of tradition.
Halvdan represents those who are tired of the fight, and who would rather take the easier road of placation and peace. Although he fully supports his comrade and his seemingly mad quest, his inner thoughts seek otherwise, and he would rather lay down his arms and accept the new way rather than fight it any longer. Although he is willing to fight alongside his brethren, he only sees distrust in the elder gods, and fears their fickleness will only create more strife. The acceptance of the foreign gods and their ways that claim to support unification and peace seem an easier and pragmatic decision to him with little greater consequence.
Halvdan - "Ill omens my friend, look, Ymir's blood drifts into the dawning sun, and colours it as red as raven's mead, I warn you again of this dark ambition!"
This is a somewhat awkward double kenning to begin this conversation. "Ymir's blood" is a kenning for the oceans as they were created from Ymir's running blood when he was killed by the sons of Bor. Ymir was considered the ancestor of all giants. "Raven's mead" is a kenning for blood, signifying the blood of dead warriors feasted on by the ravens on the battlefield.
Vidar - "Nay, my destiny is writ in stone, as it is for all men. Fear not or fear greatly, for our wyrd is upon us!
Wyrd is a ancient term used to describe fate, or more specifically "your" fate or destiny. Terms such as destiny and fate bring up discussions of predestination and free will. This is a larger topic which I cannot discuss here, but in this context, often the god's plans are unravelled to us in strange ways, and we may never know if our fate is our own, or if we are merely pawns in a greater struggle. In certain struggles the gods need our help, just as much as we need them.
May the gods watch our path, and Tyr light our way.
Tyr is one of the eldest gods in the Northern pantheon. He was often used to denote the pole star used for sea navigation, which is used in this context.
The doom of our folk is upon us. Quickly they ever fall to the sign of the southern cross. Our fate must be decided! We must sail at once!"
I've used the term "South" or "Southern" throughout the album to describe the origin of Christianity. In those times, the missionary and political pressure of Christianity would have actually come from England, or continental Europe. I choose the term "South" in both a directional (Middle East), and spiritual sense. In occult history, we often hear the terms Western and Eastern tradition to differentiate spiritual currents of thought between Western Europe and to that of the Orient. In more ancient times when the world was much different than it was now, both spiritually and physically, this dichotomy was actually North-South, denoting a "pole" of spiritual thought. This is the Hyperborean tradition versus the Atlantian tradition.
Halvdan - "To the north, then?"
Vidar - "Aye... to the north..."The red runes spoke of these dark days
Runes were traditionally stained red, either through painting, or real blood.
A tale forgotten beneath the dying sun
The dying sun in this case is spiritual. It signifies the death of a spiritual ideal or logos.
A darkened plague, eclipsing all that should be
The darkened plague is the spread of Christian beliefs.
To the north we sail, beyond the mists of time
The true spiritual north had been lost in the mists of time. The protagonist's quest is to rediscover this by travelling through the current physical north towards their primordial ancestral homeland.
From ancient lore, a stone from above
In the farthest north, beneath the ice and snowAlthough there does not appear to be such as myth in the old Scandinavian legends, the idea of the primordial black stone comes to us primarily from medieval and alchemical legends of the Grail stone. More information on the history of the stone is described in the commentary to the track "Urd".
To turn back the southern shadow,
To reverse the river of Freya's tearsThe story of Freya's tears (a kenning for gold) tells of how Freya had missed her husband Od so much that she cried tears of gold. The term here is used to describe the sadness of the elder gods over the loss the culture they created.
"That ninth I know: if need there be,
to guard a ship in a gale.
the wind I calm, and the waves also
And wholly soothe the sea." — HavamalThis is taken from the section of Havamal that lists eighteen magic spells. Many have tried to relate these spells to certain runes, most notably, Guido von List, whose eighteen rune system was widely influential in the Runic renaissance of late 19th and early 20th century Germany. Other than these correspondences, there is little traditional about this system, which von List envisioned in 1902 while temporarily blinded for eleven months after having an operation for cataracts. (This should not discount List's uncanny knack for some extremely intuitive and wise writings on folk etymology and deep understanding of 'landscapes' and architecture. His mysticism rings true for me on so many levels.) The most traditional reconstruction of the Runic alphabet contains twenty-four runes. Linguistic differences in Scandinavia modified this to a later sixteen rune system used in those areas. The Anglo-Saxons extended the elder system to twenty-eight and even thirty-three runes. For more detailed information on the history of the Runic alphabets, I recommend "Runelore" by Edred Thorsson, "Runes, an Introduction" by R.W.V.Elliot, and "Reading the Past: Runes" by R.I. Page.
Walvater do not desert us
Walvater "Father of the slain", another name for Odin. He was known in legend to be fickle and untrustworthy, and was often cited as the reason for losing a battle as often as winning one. See my commentary on "The Stranger" for more discussion on these aspects of Odin.
We throw the last spear, across the field of history
To pierce the side of the martyr
To rape the fields of their liesIn tales of ancient wars, we are told of the practice of throwing a single spear over the enemy before running into battle. The spear is identified as Odin's spear, "Gungir". By performing this rite, you were sacrificing the slain enemies to Odin.
In medieval and modern legend, the spear is also identified with the infamous Spear of Longingus, who was the Roman soldier who pierced the side of Christ while crucified. For a fantastical introduction to this subject, see "The Spear of Destiny" by Trevor Ravenscroft. Published in the early 1970's, it was one of the originators of a genre of "Nazi-occult" fiction and non-fiction (the line is blurry) still going unabated today. It claimed that Hitler was obsessed with obtaining the spear to magically aid his dream of conquest. Other equally fantastical books on this subject include "The Morning of the Magicians" by Pauwells and Bergier, and "The Occult History of the Third Reich" by Jean-Angebert. (Occult mysteries are a cottage-industry of the French, and if it weren't for Nazi's, Cathars, and Rennes le Chatteau, the Pyranees would be a much lonelier place!) For a more accurate and scholarly treatment of the Nazi-Occult subject, see "The Occult Roots of Nazism" by Nicholas Goodrick Clarke, and "Arktos: The Polar Myth" by Jocselyn Godwin.
We dream of the dawn, of honour and legend
To burn brighter than a thousand suns
Our song will lift high, our blood will run deep
Into the veins of the earth, and color the snow"Cattle die, and kinsmen die, and so must one die oneself, but there is one thing I know which never dies, and that is the fame of a dead man's deeds." — Havamal
2. Frost on Dead Leaves (Instrumental)
The vision I had of this song is that as the ship continued north upon its course, the climate would quickly become more cold and inhospitable. The title "Frost on Dead Leaves" is simple symbolism to suggest that even though it is Autumn, frost was already forming on the ground.
In ancient Iran, the original high seat of the gods, where King Yima met Ahura Mazda, was a land situated in the far north. Yima was warned in advance of an approaching series of harsh winters, and that there would be "ten months of winter and two of summer", a climate of the Arctic regions. "It was cold in the waters, on the earth, and frost covered the vegetation".
"Ice is very cold and immeasurably slippery;
it glistens as clear as glass and most like to gems;
a floor wrought by the frost, is fair to look upon."
— Anglo-Saxon Rune PoemThe rune poems are short stanzas that were created for each Rune of the alphabet. There are Anglo-Saxon, Norwegian, and Icelandic versions of these poems that contain similarities on the symbolism of each rune, but indicate many cultural and linguistic differences as well. If you are interested in Rune lore, these poems contain such brilliant symbolism and folk knowledge and are vital to connecting to the essence of their meanings.
3. Under the Dragon Star
The Dragon Star is identified as Alpha Draconis, which is part of the constellation we know as Draco. The pole star has always been traditionally used by sea navigators to find their path. The current pole star is Polaris, but due to precession (the fact that the Earth actual wobbles on its axis and the location of stars and constellations change during a 26,000 cycle) Alpha Draconis was the pole star around 2700 BCE (and also 28620 BCE!). This is of course anachronistic in this context, however, the story implies that during their travels North, our protagonists have actually gone through the mists of time to when this part of the Earth was more hospitable and their ancestor's great kingdoms prospered here.
Halvdan - "The crew is restless, we have lost three to exposure already. I plead with you, turn back, before it's too late and we all perish!"
Vidar - "If we turn back now we will be as good as dead anyway, and the Valkyries will piss on our graves."
The Valkyries "Choosers of the Slain" were sent to pick dead warriors from the battlefield and bring them to Odin's hall Valhalla "Hall of the Slain". There they would fight, train, and feast, until the time of Ragnarok where they were fated to enter into the final battle between the gods.
Halvdan - "The gods have stopped listening to you, even Aegir thwarts our way. His daughters are cold and barren, grasping our hull with icy fingers."
Aegir was the god of the ocean. His daughters were the waves.
Vidar - "Tire me not with your superstitions, for soon we will reach the ultimate north, our ancestral homeland, where the air is warm and moist, and the sun rains down eternally. By the stars, I know we are close!"
As noted above, the northern climate in these ancient times was more hospitable. In legend, this is refered to as a remote Golden Age.
Halvdan - "Well let us hope your superstitions are greater than mine!"
Cold winds carry the breath of the past
An icy path to the shores of NastrondNastrond "Dead Man's Strand". In Northern legend, Nastrond is a hall that faces north and stands "far from the sun." The hall is woven from snakes, and their heads spit venom like a river throughout the hall. It is the home of oathbreakers and murderers. Hel's hall is also nearby.
The frozen ocean mirrors the starry sky
The northern lights, beneath the dragon starThe sailors have reached a timeless place beneath the pole star of the ancient past.
Winter hearts of blackened stone
Forged in fire, in the primordial time
Cast down from heaven, to the ancient ones
To bond the iron and blood eternallyThese are whispered echoes of the myth of the black stone, the grail, the strange iron meteorite that came to them in ancient times to symbolize the bond of blood between men and gods.
"Sure, if sword could venge
Such cruel wrong,
Evil times would wait
Aegir, ocean-god.
That wind-giant's brother
Were I strong to slay,
'Gainst him and his sea-brood
Battling would I go.
But I in no wise
Boast, as I ween
Strength that may strive
With the stout ships' bane."
— Egil's SagaThe Saga of Egil Skallagrimson is one of the most famous of the Icelandic sagas. Although it is considered anonymous, it is believed to be written in the early 13 century by Snorri Sturluson.
4. Snowborne (Instrumental)
The actual music for Snowborne came about during a depressing time in the middle of writing/recording for the album. After going through a difficult moving process, and being very stressed with living conditions and work, I had little time to concentrate on music. It was at that time in early June of 2004 that I learned of the death of Thomas "Quorthon" Forsberg of Bathory.
It is quite easy for me to say that the main influence for SIG:AR:TYR is the groundbreaking Viking-metal album "Hammerheart". It was a very original and daring album during a time when the rest of the metal world was going faster, heavier, and decadent. Digging deep into his cultural roots, this music was driven purely from the heart, and took the listener on an epic journey that would stay with them spiritually for the rest of their life. This is THE Viking Metal album that has influenced so many bands over the years. His passing gave me the final inspiration to work hard to finish what I had started and to get my visions out there in the world, for they dwelled in the same fires that forged "Hammerheart".
"Praise not... the ice until it has been crossed." — Havamal
The full stanza of this simple folk wisdom is as follows:
"Praise not the day until evening, the wife until burned [on her funeral pyre], the weapon until tried, the maid until wed lock,
the ice until crossed, the ale until drunk."
5. To Cronia
In ancient Greek legends, the mysterious land of Thule was said to lie in the Cronian sea, about six days sailing north of Britain. Near Thule, the sea, land, and sky merged into a strange chaotic mass, rising and falling as the waves.
"As when two polar winds blowing adverse
Upon the Cronian sea." — Milton, Paradise LostHalvdan - "The seas, they're... they're whispering!"
The black sun rises over the northern sky
Our prow breaks the ice before us
The sea below lies stagnant, its foetid breath the air of dead men.
Their eyes stare up at us, pleading to join themThe imagery that came to me when creating these lyrics was of a the ship coming out of an icy mist into a place where the air is suddenly more warm and moist. I had visions of the sea moaning with the dead, staring eyes coming out of the waves, almost as in a warning, or a grotesque welcome. It is like a sea of the dead, stretching out at the end of the world where it is not possible to go any further, but it is the last stop on the way to the the true, Ultima Thule.
The icy grave melts under the foul mist, poisoned wind from the east
The final judgment of dead races past.
Ravens bite at their flesh, and spit it back out into the mire
to join their parasitic host again.This imagery is spiritual, symbolizing the endless death of those who die with dishonour, who failed to achieve any greatness in their life. The ravens picking at their flesh and spitting it back out symbolizes that Odin rejects them as worthy of being one his warriors, the Einherjer, for the final battle. The mire is spiritual chaos. Their soul returns to the miasma of other lost souls, who will simply be reborn again into another dull life without honour or victory. To die a good death meant that you were taking action against the natural forces of the universe, and not to simply fade away on the sick bed into the depths of Hel at the end of a long and dull life. The wanderers of Valholl continue their life, even in death, to fight on in Odin's armies. They do not sink again at death into the universal light, to be simply reintegrated back into the cosmic oversoul. Their soul and psyche live on, to continue to evolve and refine itself and separate itself into its own God.
Worse fates await those who defile their blood and honour
Look to the farthest northern shores
Beyond Cronia, beyond the sea, beyond your dreams
To the frozen throne, where he awaits.The adventurers must not be distracted by thinking this is the end of the world. They must push on further, to the most ultimate north, beneath the Pole star, to find out their destiny, where an entity from their ancient past waits for them at the high seat of the North.
"And they passed the Scythian archers, and the Tauri who eat men, and the wandering Hyperboreai, who feed their flocks beneath the pole-star, until they came into the northern ocean, the dull dead Cronian Sea."
— Charles Kingsley "The Heroes" (1856)Kingsley's "The Heroes" is actually a children's book about Greek Mythology. In our current age, what do our children learn now of our glorious, ancient past?
Beneath a single brightened star,
Spinning round both near and farThe ultimate destination of our polar origins lies beneath the pole star. Is the veritcal axis representing the pillar of our spirituality. As the Earth wobbles on its axis, this star is seen over millenia circumscribing a whirling wheel in the northern sky. It is both "near and far" indicating the star in the sky is echoed in the dynamic star of our souls within us.
A frozen throne lies cold and sleeping
And held the giant, tall and weeping
"For eternal winters, lost in time,
I weep for all my etin kind
The blood that bonds both high and low
Runs ever through the ice and snow"The giant (etin) represents the last vestige of ages gone, he has rested here for eons of Winters to await the return of those connected to those ancient times. In many ways the etins and mankind are of common origins. Although the gods (in the Eddas) claimed descent from Buri, and the Giants from Ymir,
"I see thee men, once friend and foe
Heimdall's children, seeds have sownHeimdall is considered the ancestor of mankind, such as related in the opening of the poem Völuspá:
"I ask for a hearing of all the holy races
Greater and lesser, kinsmen of Heimdall."In the poem Rígsthula, it is generally accepted that Heimdall is the same as Rig, who through his wanderings, fathered the three primary classes of human beings, Thrall, Carl, and Jarl (Slave, Freeman, and Noble). In this story, Rig stays with a series of three families who offer him hospitality and shelter for the night. He sleeps between the husband and wife during the night, and nine months later, the wife bears a child of the corresponding class.
Compare this with the strangely similar Greek tale of the birth of Urion (Orion). An old farmer gave sanctuary to three passing strangers, who happened to be the gods Zeus, Neptune and Hermes. When they were finished, the visitors asked their host if he had any requests. The old man said that he wished he had a son. They stood together around the hide of the ox they had just eaten, and the gods urinated on it and told the old man to bury the hide. In time, a boy was born who the old man named Urion after the mode of his conception. But it seems this is from the Greek verb "ourein" that means not only "urinating", but also "shedding sperm".
There is also the familiar Biblical tale of the gods who took the daughters of men as their wives and created the race of the Nephilim (Giants):
"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were giants [nephilim] in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown." — Genesis chapter 6.
Still keep thy pure and blessed mead
The Giant recognizes that the adventurers are true members of their kind, who have kept the strength of their blood (mead) intact since the early times. The spark of the gods is still there.
Beneath the stars, beneath the tree"
Symbolizing the polar sky and the world tree Yggdrasil.
"Yet new days dawn and Norns have spun
The final fate of Odin's sons
Nine ages past, nine worlds collide
Drowning deep in crimson tides"The Norns are the three fates of the Past (Urd), Present (Verdandi), and Future (Skuld). "Nine" is a number that shows up time and time again in the Scandinavian myths, most notably as the number of worlds that are connected by the World Tree (Yggdrasil).
"You seek thy doom and freedom same
The need of ice and burning flame
The black stone wails for fallen kin
The high halls clash in storm and din"The Giant is implying that in seeking their origins it will lead them to both their victory but also their doom, hence the mention of both fire and ice in the next line. This represents the need to expand our knowledge, to seek the mysteries in all, but this may also lead to chaos.
"Middling wise every man should be: beware of being too wise; his fate let no one beforehand know who would keep his heart from care."
— Havamal"Foreign gods smite night and day
Temples fired, runes burned away
The elder ones of wayward kith
Bore strong new sons of eager frith"As the emmisaries of foreign religions and cultures destroy and burn, the wise ones are implanting their knowledge to a new generation of youth to ensure it is not lost and can lead to a future regeneration.
"To hold the tide of kingdoms lost
To take the hammer to the cross
The blood skald sing your song and fame
Hero's fane and martyr's bane"Those of the old faith will prevail against those of the "martyr". The hammer is Thor's Hammer, Mjollnir.
"It is the greatest merit of Christianity that it has calmed this brutal Germanic pugnacity down somewhat. But it could not destroy it, and once the taming talisman—the cross—bursts asunder, the wildness of the ancient warriors of which the Norse poets have so much to say will shoot up again. This talisman is fragile, and the day will come when it will collapse miserably. Then the ancient stony gods will rise from the forgotten debris and rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes, and finally Thor with his giant hammer will jump up and smash the Gothic cathedrals." — Heinrich Heine (1834).
"I tell my tale of ages gone
Of eternal cycles soon to come
Heed my verse, for Heimdall's horn
Hails now the end of etin-borne"Heimdall's horn, Gjallarhorn (Yelling, or Ringing Horn), will blow to signal that the end of the world, Ragnarok, is nigh.
The giant now takes them through a mystical voyage of visions of the past, present, and future. This is relayed in the following songs, Urd (That which is), Verdandi (That Which is Becoming), and Skuld (That Which Should Be).
The past is that which has become, and what has brought us to this very point in time, that which _is_. We must be able to pull from this well of knowledge of our past, to reactivate the links in our blood to our ancestors and gods. For there is an active resevoir of power to draw from, to strengthen what we are in the present, and what we will be in the future.
Drink from Urd, and sing its song
Its mead of knowledge sweet and strong
The mists of time and port of call
The beginning and the end of allThe Well of Urd lay under one of the roots of the World Tree Yggdrasil. Nearby are the three Norns who attend to it. The adventurer's must know the past of their origins before continuing their spiritual journey.
Star borne lay with wives of men
Their daughters great with etin kin
Ancients seed the darken kind
To hang in silence nights all nineThe gods from the stars lay with the wives and daughters of men to create mankind. See the corresponding notes from The Dead Giant's Tale. Our people were created with the divine spark of the gods within us. We share their blood and DNA. It was Odin who hung on that windy tree, nights all nine, to win the knowledge of the Runes. We too must fight and sacrifice to recover our lost (or in actuality, forgotten) knowledge of our origins.
The elder blood in fiery vein
Unleash the brood of Odin's fane
To trample southern kind asunder
And bring the light of distant thunderThe spark of the gods within will allow us to conquer the foreign beliefs of the "south". The distant thunder is the sound of Thor, smashing the enemies of the people with his hammer.
Erect halls beyond the sea
To honour blood of Heimdall's three
Till the land of golden yield
To forge the steel and oaken shieldNow begins a description of the golden ages of mankind (Heimdall's Three) when he lived closer to the earth and his gods, a time of harmony and natural balance.
Drink and laugh o sons of high
Lay with maidens 'neath the sky
Forge the race of Northern kind
The fates of gods and men entwinedThe gods seed must be perpetuated to new souls born of the divine coupling of gods and men. If the seed is extinguished, and the line ended, then all, men and gods included, will be lost again to the natural cycles of chaos.
Great kingdoms rose in golden times
And mighty winds of northern skies
The winter frost of yearly time
Yeild summer rain and warmth sublimeThe earth and its peoples were in balance, the seasons stayed their normal course, the cycle was a high point in human development.
The god's gift came in flash of fire
A map of heaven to Asgard's spire
Black iron forged in Volund's name
Ancestral bond of blood and flameThe gift from the gods, a meteorite falls from the sky and is venerated as the symbol of the bond of blood between gods and men, The myths of all civilizations carry this echo of a distant memory of a sacred stone. The stone symbolizes the centre, a pole, the steadfastness of iron. In mythology, these stones were typically used to symobolize the right of kingship (such as the sword in the stone of Arthurian legend, the Roman Lapis Niger, the Stone of Destiny of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the Scottish Stone of Scone, and so on). Even now in the Islamic world we have the Black Stone of Mecca, thought to be a meteorite. Magical "fatal" weapons such as swords and axes were made from the iron-ore of the meteorites. Volund is the Norse version of Wayland, the Saxon smith of the gods.
And all shall point to northern star
Where lodestone guides from lands afar
Primordial home of gods and men
To never leave from mortal kenThe stone symbolizes the magentic north that sailors use with their lodestone to guide them in their voyages. It is the home of our polar origins.
When sudden earth and mountain split
And walls of ice from north emit
And nations fall and seas arise
A reign of fire from darkened skiesMost ancient myths of all cultures speak of a great natural cataclysm that brought an end to the original Golden Age, including earthquakes, floods, meteor strikes, and sunken continents.
Boreal children scatter far
The high ones weep between the stars
For all they wrought, and all they forged
Fell deep within dark earthen gorgeThe original, remaining Boreal stocks now migrate south and eastwards to form the nucleus of the next cycle of civilzations.
To eternal lay in ice and snow
Held whispered runes in heathen glow
For those of kind, to find the same
The one-eye's secret throne to reignThe hidden vestiges of our past still lay between the ice and snow of the far north. Will the recent warming of the polar regions allow archeologists to rediscover this Golden Age? Will the frozen throne of the one-eye (Odin) be revealed again?
And now lost children flee their bane
To time of old, the stone of flame
To fill the veins with ancient fire
Reshape the world on martyr's pyreThe present remnants of the ancient Boreal peoples now seek guidance to their current crisis. They return to the North to unseal their past, to rediscover the ancient stone, to rekindle the flame of the bond between themselves and their gods of eld, if they are to overcome those who follow the "martyr".
Verdandi is the Eternal Now. It is the vortex containing both the past and future, and in its maelstrom and space and time convergence, offers the true possibility of forging an evolutionary future on the eternal traditional principles of the past.
In this track, I wanted to capture the essence of a people turning against their oppressors, of the bloody book of history turned to a new chapter.The forced conversions, the destruction of pagan sites and temples, the burning of sacred groves… murder, rape.. to suppress a people, you must destroy their traditions, their history, their culture, their spirit, and their blood. We see this now in every country of the Western world whose ancestors brought civilization and higher culture to these countries, who founded their basic laws and guiding spiritual principles, quietly succumbing like lambs to the slaughter on the altars of the modern world: of materialism, greed, globalism, multiculturalism, extremist egalitarianism and liberalism, and environmental suicide.
It is in the Eternal Now when grave choices are made, and terrible oaths uttered, when to fight is the only option left, a fight for physical and spiritual survival of your peoples and their culture for eternity.
Dead Giant - "Now that I have shown the past,
we must sail for what comes to pass,
Your blood kin break the circles fate,
to turn the tides with might and hate!"She sees smoke rise upon the hill
Clouding all with ash and hateThe future is often murky, as the rolling, dark clouds come closer, or is it the smoke of the burning villages and their deceased denizens?
Robes of black, strike the brand
Consuming all, the mind and fleshThe shapeless forms of the new faith seek supremacism over the spirit and the body. A true sign of tyranny. The destruction of knowledge leaves one blind, while the destruction of the spirit leaves one numb. The atrophied light of a soul crushed to feel no bonds with the race of their spirit.
Strength lies not with foreign spawn
The blood's venom the heart of winter
The ice and fire of primordial ken
Last eternal ages, beyond dying sunsForeign blood is the death of a nation and its traditions. It is poison in the veins of the noble ones, who are star borne and star destined. Their blood is the blood of the gods, and it shall return to the gods.
She scribes the runes in ancient stone
For they burn not, and glow in fire
Bind runes she reddens, cruel ones
To fetter the martyr's sheep"That third I know, if my need be great, to fetter a foeman fell
I can dull the swords of deadly foes, that nor wiles nor weapons avail."
— The third "spell" of HavamalBind runes are runestaves combined together to form a new shape representing the sum of their symbolism and power. Runes were typically etched in bones and wood, materials which of course decomposed over time. There are only few examples left of rune inscriptions, most of them in rune stones scattered over the Northern European world. A majority of these are memorial stones, inscribed to honour dead kin.
Now she is found by the robed man
The dress is torn, and she is held down
To receive his foul seed, but now he
lies fallen, her thorn deep in his neck."Thorn is very sharp; for every than who grasps it; it is harmful,
and exceedingly cruel to every man who lies upon them."
— Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem
The future is That Which Should Be. The future is not an unavoidable fate or a forgone conclusion, it is weaved and shaped by those of the present. The future is simply a collection of possibilities, any of which might be more likely to happen if a current course of action is guided in the present.
The black stone lights the way to far
Where Baldur waits the sleeping starIn the Norse myths, Baldur was said to have survived Raganrok and return afterwards to rule the new world.
To spin like sunlight darkened black
And boldy sign the northern pactAs previously mentioned, the Earth itself wobbles on its axis, and the location of stars and constellations change due to precession during a 26,000 cycle. The pole star constantly shifts from one star to another, but seen over time, it creates a visual effect of a spinning wheel effect at the pole. The northern pact refers to the covenant between men and their gods.
Where screaming ravens soar the sky
And mighty winds the ships defy
Valvater's army marches on
To battlefields that light the dawnThis may be the final battle, Ragnarok "The doom of the gods." It may indicate a great war that has already happened, or a war still yet to happen.
The southern plague is thus defiled
To bring splendour to the northern child
Where twilight roads lead Thulian way
And destroy the ones that led astrayIn this possible future, the battle is won, and the physical and spiritual influence of the southern cults is neutralized, leading to a resurgence of the Northern "Thulean" way. This lays a groundwork for the renewed strengthening of those descended of North European heritage for a bright future for their kin.
The new north shines like starry night
The martyr falls in black sun's light
The stone is set in middle earth
To eternal guide the blood's rebirthThe Grail stone is returned to its home to serve as the spiritual pole and axis for the rebirth of the Northern races and cultures.
Halvdan — "Ill omens my friend, look, Ymir's blood drifts into the dawning sun, and colors it as red as raven's mead, I warn you again of this dark ambition!"
Vidar —"Aye, an ill omen indeed. My heart weighs heavy, as this accursed sign is like heavy iron on my chest. I fear this mad quest of mine shall not continue."
Halvdan —"Will you accept their offer then? Please, our time is done here. This new way speaks of peace, we cannot fight this no longer. The King has said thus."
Vidar —"Aye... the crucified one is your King now my friend. We have forsaken it all. Our history, our culture, our heritage, our blood. Our gods... we have killed them, and there, there is their blood..."
As the mists of time shroud over us and part again, we are returned to the present day. The conversation of the beginning of the tale is repeated, but as we see, in this possible future, the one that became our own, the quest did not happen. As we all know, Christianity triumphed over the old ways, and that is what came to be written in our history's bloody pages. Could this influence of the south have been thwarted at all? What caused such a decline in the knowledge of our distant past where a foreign interloper could so quickly take the minds and hearts of men? Or is the final battle for our souls still to come? Is it not too late to turn back the tides of history and return to our former greatness?