Historical Setting: 793 C.E. Skåne
I just asked to learn how writing is done so I could know more about this new time and place where I am. And the seiðr brought me on this journey to see markings on stones of stories of mythical gods and pagan heroes. Now I know that writing here is done with a chisel and a hammer. And I learn that this woman wants something from me I can’t give her while I am still in the midst of my own grief for my wife and family.
Apparently Sjókona is going to stay right here to wait for something that may never happen — for an infant to be put out for exposure. She seems intent on leaving this shore with an infant in her arms or in her womb. But my yearning is only for what I once had — for belonging — to love and be loved. Even if I could get beyond my own grief, her desire for an infant seems as though it is really to own a little person. She perceives relationship as possession. To be a part of that would cost me too much.
The wind has shifted. The clinging stillness of the east wind lays the waters flat. An east wind brings the first black flies of spring looking for spoils, buzzing, biting, setting the earth with maggots.
“You can’t leave,” she tells me. “You have no place to go.”
“I’ll find the mooring place for the ships and I can go anywhere.”
“And then I will follow you and I will tell the rowers not to take you because you are a sailor’s curse.”
“I’m no curse against anyone and ships always need strong rowers.”
“Not all of the ships that travel the sea will go back to the land of our home, you know.”
“It is your home. I’m yet a stranger there. But I can ask which ship is crossing the sea straight toward the west and I will tell them you are alone here and need to be carried back to your home.”
“That’s ridiculous! You don’t even know the language. How can you talk to anyone! And I haven’t told you of the bind-runes yet, and there is even a Christian bind-rune. You have so much more to learn. You can’t leave!”
“So much more to learn.”
I turn toward the east and set out walking, following the waters that flow back into the sea.
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 