My Dear Fiona - Chapter 12 Back at Skara Brae

Stories

You get mixed up in stories and legends and soon you can’t distinguish them from facts anymore, because history and legend are uninterrupted threads twining through the fabric of time, and the events’ meanings connect across centuries, as if they are all a part of a greater whole we could see if we lived long enough. How long is long enough, Fiona? Although I shouldn’t ask you, should I?

In all the times I dreamt of you, I’ve never seen you old, my princess. I can’t see past that fateful day whose menace prompted you to pack all your power and will inside a gull and set it free. You looked so young it broke my heart, but I don’t think you died that day. In fact, I think you never died at all.

Hodr of the mail coat lets the halter of the arm hang on my hawk-trodden hawk-gallows;

I know how to make the pin-string of the shield-tormentor ride the gallows of the spear-storm.

The feeder of the battle-hawk enjoys the greater praise.

The florid poetry of your ancestors reverberates in the halls of the Gods, making you smile across centuries, fair child of Norway. What are you smiling about? What is it you’re not telling me?