Anglo-Saxon Myths E-Book

Brice Stratford

• Herausgeber: Batsford
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 292

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Enchanting tales of the gods, kings, and monsters that populated the Anglo-Saxon world. An atmospheric collection of 30 folk tales exploring stories of cosmology, monsters, conflicts and courtship from the Seven Kingdoms to Middle Earth. This is an entertaining portal into a world overflowing with mythology, magic and all manner of beguiling creatures, which has inspired everything from the Lord of the Rings to Game of Thrones. The book is divided into 3 parts: - Scop is a set of stories told by the Anglo-Saxon storyteller Scop, from the creation to the destruction of the world. It explores what remains of the gods and monsters of the Anglo-Saxon cosmology. - Wreccan is pagan stories exploring self-discovery and development through exile. Variations of these tales would have told by the Anglo-Saxons themselves, including Sigemund's rebellion and the trials of Beowulf. - Bretwalda stories revolve around Bretwalda the chief Anglo-Saxon king who ruled over the majority of the Seven Kingdoms. These stories reflect a period when both the old gods and Christianity existed simultaneously.Remarkable illustrations by Jesús Sotés breathe new life into these tales of the past.

Leseprobe

Contents

Introduction

Scop: the Age of Gods

Moon over Middle Earth

Tue and the Binding of Helle

Woden and the Wyrm

Thunner, Dinne and Heofenfyr

Frig and the Elven King

The Burning Time of Waellende Wulf

The Vessel of Death

Wreccan: the Age of Heroes

Of Sheaf and Shield

Sigemund Victory-hand

Heremod, Hoarder of Rings

Wada’s Dream

The Wayfarer

Wade in the Water

Weyland’s Smithy

The Flight of Weyland

A Dance to the Music of Mimming

The Wife’s Lament

The Stallion and the Horse

Heorot Returned

The Desolation of Smeag

Bretwalda: the Age of England

The Beginning of Wonders

The Revenging of Arilda

The Altars of Raedwald

Penda’s Grin

The Rumwold Prophecy

The Hind of Domne Eafe

Snake-stone and Cattle-song

The Urith Sacrifice

The Halgan of the North

The Evengloom of the Gods

Osgyth and the Stag

The Vision of Dryhthelm

In a Hole in the Ground

The Ealdspell is the ancient tale of England, of the Anglo-Saxons – it is infinite and ongoing, encompassing all there is to know and tell – every song and every story, every hero and every villain, every god and every monster.

It is the deepest lore, and sleeps unseen within the rest.

This book is a mere collection of fragments, surviving shards of the Ealdspell that, placed together, offer an interesting perspective. Some are presented as they were found, some in arrested decay, some rewilded, restored or propped up still against the straining remains of others.

The stories of the Ealdspell were usually sung, and almost always heard aloud rather than read. I have written this book with that in mind, and where the patterns and words might seem unwieldy or unfamiliar, try reading them aloud, to yourself or someone else. Explore the rhythm, the cadence, the musicality of the words, as well as their technical meaning.

I have invented nothing of what follows, only curated, interpreted, recorded and observed.

This book has been a labour of love, and this Ealdspell has brought me through strange times. I sincerely hope that you enjoy it, return to it, and retell the stories yourself.

Are you sitting comfortably?

Then I’ll begin.

A scop is an Anglo-Saxon storyteller. The word comes from the verb ‘scapan’, or ‘shapen’ – to mold or to form – for it is stories that shape us, our past and our future. The scop would master old songs and sagas and retell them afresh, crafting new ones as they went along, and in so doing would shape the tribe or the court or the people to which they belonged – it is this that sets them apart from the ‘gleemen’, the wandering bards and minstrels of Anglo-Saxon England. Scops did not merely entertain (though this they did as well). Their narratives shaped and reshaped all who heard them, and their voice was forged and their tales were wrought with this in mind. For the Anglo-Saxons, to tell a story was literally to cast a spell, for this is what the word meant. The power of the scop was understood by all.

In the beginning was the yawning void, the wet chaos of the chasm. And the abyss was of gods, and gods were of the abyss, and unmade chaos reigned.

In the wet and endless nothing of abyss, ice and fire met, and where they met was rupture, and there dwelt the fire in the water, and from the wet of that tireless flame, like a seed in the dark, there grew a root, and from that root there grew a leaf.

The leaf that grew had little to sustain it, and so it died.

And from that root there grew another leaf, and another.

And after they had died as well, and joined their mouldering siblings, a new leaf grew, and it fed on the rot of the others, and from that leaf there grew a tree, and from that tree grew seven worlds – six encircling one.

Highest on the tree was the High Earth, which one day would hold Neorxnawang, the heavens. Lowest on the tree was the Low Earth, which was fated to hold the halls of Helle. Between the two was the Middle Earth, and it is on this Middle Earth we dwell.

All stories have a beginning.

But each beginning is a thousand beginnings and a million ends, a single thread in an infinite tapestry.

Order from chaos, ice and fire – this is not one beginning, but many. The start of countless stories, countless worlds. Stories from long before we first took breath, stories still to come, and stories starting now.

This is one such story, and this is one such start.

From the branches of the World Tree grew many strange and different things, beyond the understanding of man, and the pain it suffers is eternal.

From the first roots of the World Tree the Wyrd were grown, who weave the fates of all, and weaved the tales we tell. The Wyrd is both singular and plural. Individual, triple and infinite. Wyrd is all.

The Wyrd first weaved Nerthus into existence, Mother of Earths, and who came into being pregnant with creation, birthing many things.

Mother Nerthus first birthed life to the High Earth, and then to the Low.

And on the High Earth, which was shining light, Mother Nerthus birthed a race of high gods.

And on the Low Earth, which was calm water, Mother Nerthus birthed a race of low gods.

And on the Middle Earth, which was both and neither, Mother Nerthus birthed herself, and then was Mother Erce, first of the middengods.

And those two sibling worlds of sibling gods grew – the high gods in the light, ruled over by their highest, whose name was Ingui – the low gods in their deep, dark depths of landless sea, the leader there unnamed.

But the low gods envied the light of the high, and the high gods disdained the wet of the low, and the sibling worlds invented war.

This first war was a terrible war. The worst and most destructive war that ever has been warred, and ever will be warred, until the last. The battle-pain was woeful, then, and this first war we call the Forewar, with Middle Earth the battlefield, and there shining Ingui was lost.

With much death and ancient pain, it was the high gods of the High Earth who triumphed, and the low gods of the Low Earth who did not.

This war took countless ages to be won, and when it was, the generation of the gods that reigned on high were led in war by one named Tiw, who we call Tue. Though older gods had flared and burned and disappeared like dying stars, this battle-closing victory belonged alone to Tue, greatest then in war.

We cannot know who led the low gods. After defeat they were gods no longer, undergods at best. Their memory obliterated, the dead parts of those who were killed became many other things, became stars and mountains, dwarves and monsters, seas and beasts and underkin.

When the great Low Army was broken, its soldiers and its offspring scattered about the seven worlds. Many of these creatures, these orphans and children of the Forewar, today we call ettins. Ettins defy easy description. They have many forms, and many types, and many still are sui generis, existing unprecedented, beautiful and terrible in their uniqueness.

Some have lived for countless lives and live on still, whilst others were born and thrived, and shrivelled and died, in the space of a human heartbeat. Some ettins built broods of their own, others kept immortal and constant, still more simply faded away.

Some are of the greatest power, nearer to the undergods they came from. Some have the strength of a hundred men. Some are nothing more than bestial rage, or the lowest cunning. Others have inhuman intelligence, plotting terrible, unthinkable things from their fens and their swamps.

Ettins are often cruel, and rarely to be trusted by man.

But ettins are only some of the many creatures we will meet on our exile through the Ealdspell. As the ettins came from the gods of the Low, so the ents came from the gods of the High.

From the spilled blood and broken parts of the High, many other things grew, and where the ettins were fed on pain and depth and darkness, the ents were fed on light, and came to know and learned to understand.

Ents are not as ettins; whereas each ettin is unlike the other, the ents are variants on a theme. Great and powerful things are ents, and old. Where ettins destroy, ents construct. Where ettins stand for chaos and for pain, ents are things of life and of care. What ettins take apart, ents hold together. This is not to say, of course, that ettins do not build and do not craft, but what they did was dark and strange, inverted and inward-facing. The things that ettins make from the wreckage of what has been cause deep and unseen pain, and cannot last, and run on spite – obscured reflections in a twisted mirror.

Both ettins and ents were amongst the things that populated Middle Earth after the Forewar, building towers and halls and strange shires, crafting treasures and armour and arms beyond our understanding. Some say that ents remain, still, though I have never known one.

Most common are the tales of ettins, many of whom you may have met before now, whether or not you realised.

This sums the first of life on Middle Earth, then, in the wake of the Forewar. The otherworlds we shall not speak of now. Much knowledge of them is lost to us, for today they are distant, and we have long forgotten the ways that lead to them.

When war was won and the enemy scattered, Tue ordered the forces of the High Earth to search the World Tree, to round up and hunt down what survivors they could.

The high gods scoured the branches and combed the boughs and rummaged the fruits, and many were the things that were herded back to Low Earth, but many were the others that hid, and many were those that evaded capture, and started fresh stories of their own.

When the gods had done all they cared to, great Tue made Low Earth subject to the High, and bound the worst of the ettins and the direst of the dragons, the fresh terrors and the ancient undergods, deep into the very core of Low Earth – that boiling, drowned fire where they rage and burn still. This done, he took the heart of flame away with him, and bound the waters that made the world with bonds of ice that covered all, and could not break.

And the Low Earth then was a world of ice, and the ice became a cage.

Tue travelled thereafter from his hall, down, down the World Tree, through its spine, until he found its roots and visited the Wyrd, to whom all things are subject, and took to his knee and asked for counsel.

The Wyrd, when it spoke to Tue that day, did so in the form of three, each hooded. Each agreed to tell him of a single ettin still at large, and each assured him of their danger, and each assured him that the three would be the downfall of the gods. Though they would tell great Tue where each was to be found, none could be killed by him, try as he might.

Tue begged to be told what they would tell.

Wyrd told of the hidden woman, that she would be before his eyes unseen when deep and dark and wise. Wyrd told of Wearg, that he would in the Worldwood be, beneath the skies. Wyrd told of Wyrm, that it would dwell in chaos, far from land which earthen lies.

And Tue rushed forward to between the Wyrd and there, where nothing before had been, he found the hidden woman, and her power was inside hidden things, and once exposed Tue found no fight, and named her Seo Helle.

Seo Helle was strong and fine and was not to be killed, and as the deep, infernal hall of the Low Earth was now forever locked in ice, Tue bound her to the surface, and gave her Low Earth to rule as her domain, and made her jailor of her kin.

And Seo Helle was satisfied.

Tue travelled then to Middle Earth and to the Worldwood, and searched it long for thirty days and thirty nights, until he thought to travel to the moon, and watch from there and wait. And wait. And soon he heard Wearg’s call, mournful to him, from deep within the spread of trees – and he gazed and gazed, and heard and heard until he found him, and down leapt Tue to face Wearg.

And Tue gave kindness, and flattery and food, and marvelled at the strength and size of Wearg, and told him that he had not captured him, for what would be the point? No bonds could hold tight such a one as he.

And Wearg agreed, and Wearg grew fat on food, and Wearg grew full on pride. Tue offered, then, to test his strength, to bind him, and to see how quickly he’d break free. But Wearg was wolf, and wolves know well of cunning-craft no matter what the trust, so Wearg accepted Tue for just as long as he was fed, and only for as long as Wearg could hold the hand that fed him, tight between his teeth.

With jaw-swords locked around Tue’s wrist, hot breath upon his arm, Tue bound Wearg, and Wearg began to strain, and as he did the bonds cut tight and tighter still about his neck, and when Wearg realised he was tricked it was too late, and as his giant head became dissevered from his shoulder, Wearg bit the hand that fed him, as Tue had known he must.

Tue wrenched the mouth and pulled his stump away, and in his pain he bound the living head of Wearg to serve the Low Earth, and it became the Weargen mouth of Helle, and with no stomach left to fill was cursed with endless hunger, all-devouring.

Just one remained, and that was Wyrm.

So Tue, in weakened state, went far from home, and far beyond the realms in which his power lay and, maddened by his bitten wrist, Tue focused on his goal, let all else flow from out his mind.

The blood that swam from Tue thereafter filled the waves, alerted all to him and sapped his strength full well. Still Tue pushed on, anger-hot and pain-led.

When Tue found Wyrm, it knew that he was coming, and so swam on, and on, and led him up and down, and kept to the horizon of the horizon, to tire the one-hand even further.

And so, when Wyrm was in its territory and strong, and when great Tue was weariest and weak, Wyrm turned.

Its bite was poison, and water-chaos was its home.

Tue, who had won victory o’er all but still raged on for more, and weakened by winning again and again, did finally taste defeat.

And Wyrm bit Tue in twain, and swallowed both.

Wyrd measured out another thread.

So Tue, weakened by winning again and again, did finally taste defeat.

And Wyrm bit Tue in twain, and swallowed both.

And with Tue’s power spent, that great and terrible Wyrm spread forth from chaos and encircled all, and from it came such poisons and such pain, that it was thought that none existed who could quell that watery bane.

The high gods searched and scoured and rummaged the branches of the World Tree for Tue, but all that they could find was blood in water.

Still they searched, leaderless and in vain.

Still they tried to fight Wyrm, but it was drunken then on Tue’s power, and wounds healed in an instant, and any weapon striking it was stuck there fast, and wrenched from the attacker’s hand. No god nor beast had craft enough to fight it.

One god, who was the craftiest of gods, was Woden.

There are two kinds of intelligence, they say – the sort that stores facts in itself, and the sort that knows where to find facts when it needs them.

Woden’s was the latter.

So Woden travelled to Wyrd and asked for the knowledge that he needed, of where Tue could be found, of how Tue could be saved, of how he might defeat cruel Wyrm.

The Wyrd chose not to answer.

And Woden asked again, and begged, and still the Wyrd chose not to answer.

And Woden rent himself and bled for them, and Wyrd declined – told Woden that no matter how much blood he gave, no matter what the sacrifice, they would not give the knowledge that he sought, and that no other held it.

And Woden left the Wyrd, and wandered the World Tree. Sat down and watched as Wyrm and water-chaos swelled. Watched the setting sun and rising moon. Searched his mind for a route around his strictures.

And moons set, and suns rose.

Woden there, atop the World Tree, looked into nothingness and found the way, and knew no knowledge given can compare to knowledge found, and knowledge found cannot compare to knowledge taken, and knowledge taken hard is knowledge earned, and knowledge wrought. And Woden sacrificed himself unto himself, upon that tree, and hanged and pierced and nailed himself upon it.

As Woden hanged, undying, there upon the tree he saw and heard all things at once.

Woden, then, watched as a grey-brown bird perceived his pain, and begged to help. But Woden shook his head, and so the bird with sadness simply cleaned the blood that bled from him and flew away, and thus was stained. Woden named it Ruddock, and it became the bird we call a robin, and was blessed, but still had not a master.

As Woden hanged, undying, there upon the tree he felt and knew all things at once.

Woden, then, watched as a bright, white bird perceived his power, and begged to help. Woden nodded and said, ‘Seek me the Wyrm,’ and so the bird vowed service, and before it left it cleaned the unwashed filth off him with feather-towel and so, with black-stained middle, flew away. Woden named it Erne, then, and it became the bird we call a white-tailed eagle, and set to searching out the sea.

As Woden hanged, undying, there upon the tree he understood all things at once and there was blessed with madness, and so was visited by a pitch-black bird, who saw his perception, and begged to help. Woden nodded and took it in his hands, and let it die and be reborn as other things, and from it made his battle-women, who he named Waelcyrge, and sent these fighters far to seek out Erne and trap and hold Wyrm, and so they did, and with job done the dead and not-dead bird flew far. Woden named it Hraefn, and it became the bird that we call raven, and travelled then between the worlds.

And Woden joined.

And maddened Woden travelled through the shadow-land that was the land of death, and there he did see many, many things, which would have shattered minds still unembalmed by his insanity. Woden spoke with many of the things he met, and learned many of their secrets, and many of their ways. He was there for many lifetimes, and for none.

Woden, then, with what had been an instant and eternity, was Woden changed, unlocked.

Pulling at the noose that bound his neck, he tore himself from the Tree and stepped through madness into the self that was required, and in that madness Woden saw things that had never yet been seen, and he took the blade of his mind and he carved them into being. Woden, then, invented the runes, and invented imagination, and art, and smuggled knowledge from beyond himself and to the worlds.

Understanding all things, then, Woden scoured the World Tree and gathered up nine herbs which grew upon it, first Mucgwyrt and Wegbrade, then Stune and Stiðe, Attorlaðe and Mægðe, Wergulu and Fille, and last of all found Finule. These are the nine that Woden sought.

Woden gave each herb a rune, and crafted each into a spear that he imbued with power.

In his madness, Woden brought these glory-twigs out to the chaos-sea, and to his Waelcyrge, who battled hard and long and hopelessly against Wyrm – for every wound that they inflicted instantly was healed, and every weapon they thrust in its hide was stuck there fast, absorbed into the beast.

But battle-frenzied Woden came, and sent the rest away, and roared to Wyrm to take him with its poisoned teeth, and Wyrm flew at him biting, but Woden leapt away.

Again he roared to Wyrm to take him, and again Wyrm charged, and again he leapt away.

A constant rage of taunt and dodge led Woden on Wyrm, faster and hotter – and soon Wyrm was angered and confused, and soon was tying up in knots, and soon it threw its snapping jaws at roaring Woden, and it felt flesh in its mouth and bit, bit hard, and felt a sear of pain.

Wyrm tried to open up its jaws, but it could not.

Wyrm tried to swim away, but it could not.

With Wyrm’s mouth tight about its tail, stuck fast in the hide that could not heal for poison, Woden raised a glory-twig and thrust the spear into Wyrm, beneath its skull, and Wyrm hissed, and the spear stuck, and the herb prevented the wound from healing. Again and again, Woden plunged the spears into Wyrm, each herb anew – no chance at all for Wyrm to adapt, or to familiarise. Each spear became stuck fast, and the poison-craft of each did sear and spread the wound, whilst all Wyrm could do was strain, its tail trapped in its mouth.

As Woden watched, Wyrm began to pull itself apart. The weakened sections of the beast did tear and split, and soon the great and fearsome thing had pulled itself to pieces. Where once had been a mighty Wyrm there now were nine; diminished, helpless, writhing. The only jaws amongst them all were still blocked up with tail, which it could never swallow or spit out.

Woden seemed to grow, full mighty, and as he did so, Wyrm in segments seemed to shrink, and float encircled, minuscule, as swelling Woden let his mind infuse them all, and glory-twigs that now seemed like darts twirled clustered, tiny in his palms.

Woden scattered, then, the nine small segments. One to each world, one to the water-chaos above, and one to the water-chaos below. Woden alone knew where. Each there grew into a smaller, lesser wyrm, in time, and from their blood came many further, minor wyrms and nicors (which we today call knuckers, and which still were terrible and wild compared to men, but nothing to the gods).

When all had split and fled, from out the belly of the beast came Tue, bisected and in sorry state of cold unlife. Woden took him up then, dressed his stump, and bound him back together. He nurtured him with those nine herbs that there had struck and so enfeebled Wyrm.

When Tue was thus administered, the Waelcyrge carried him in comfort back to his hall in the High Earth. There he did rest, and did recuperate, and was cared for by his brethren. Tue did recover, through Woden’s mad-craft, though was forever weakened by the ordeal, forever touched by death, and no longer led the gods of the High. His time had passed.

Now was the time of Woden.

With Wyrm defeated and Tue retired, still the Middle Earth was a ravaged world, and many nightmares amongst the offspring of the Forewar bided there still, and there were ettins and underwyrms, elves and dwarves, knuckers and thyrs, and much more besides.

So it was that the gods of the High Earth set about taming the Middle Earth once more, and banishing the children of the Low Earth back to their icy home, to dwell upon those frozen prison walls under the rule of Seo Helle.

The gods did battle, then, and skirmished long, and this aimless, general, useless effort brought small results. Woden decided to focus his force.

Woden first of all sent for Thunor, who we call Thunner.

Thunner was the biggest and the broadest of the gods; with a booming laugh and a bushy beard he towered over all, out-eating and out-drinking every guest at Woden’s hall. No god did more to tame the Middle Earth than he, who rages still about the skies, for this was the task that Woden gave that day, this the mission. Thunner became his battler. From the core of that fire that once had warmed the Low Earth, a flaming axe was forged, and was called Heofenfyr, and always would return to the hand of he who threw it.

Thunner was given a great chariot too, called Dinne, which was drawn by oxen formed from the clay of the High Earth, from which living flesh could be cut to roast and eat, and always would regrow. Dinne could not be stopped when the oxen charged – not by any force, nor by any strength – and would always do as Thunner bid, whether he rode or no.

So, with great Dinne, Thunner thundered about the Middle Earth, striking with Heofenfyr at his enemies as he did, charging amongst them with his unstoppable ride, scattering foes, then slicing them down with his fiery axe, or simply leaping from his chariot and wrestling bare-handed.

The battles that Thunner waged on the giants, the ettins, the dragons and the rest could fill many books in themselves, though more tales are lost than can ever be found. It was Thunner’s dance that did as much as anything to shape the Middle Earth to that we know today.

Thunner’s work was long, and lasted much time, and last of the lands on Middle Earth he cleared was the Isle of Albion, fighting long and hard with that undergod Alebion who held it. When first they battled it was over water, treacherous and deep, which was a strength to Alebion and his brother, who battled side by side. Had either one been on their own, Thunner’s task would not have overwhelmed him, but fighting them in tandem taxed his resources, for charging one left him open to the other, and hurling Heofenfyr at either left him sore exposed.

On the battle raged, and skies were black and roiling, waters boiled and spat. Thunner tired, then, of tactics, hurled himself uncaring straight towards the foe. When Alebion evaded him, Thunner focused on the brother, caring not for consequence, and as he hacked with flaming axe at face, Alebion crashed upon him like a wave, and Thunner then was blinded by the salt. Now only one opponent remained, but at the cost of Thunner’s sight. He knelt there, then, over what was left of the brother he had slain, listening to the waves wap and wan, trying to determine how best to attack, and what ways were left to defend.

Thunner hurled his axe, but Alebion caught it in his depths – next instant Thunner was reeling, Alebion full force at him, then gone, then striking again, pulling back before the blinded god could catch the slightest grasp.

Thunner kneeled, panting, listening. He heard a new attack, too late, and still was knocked, and hard, by onslaught that he faced unseen.

He crouched, panting, mind firing, ears searching.

As Thunner prepared to die he heard a voice at his shoulder. It told him where to go, and Thunner obeyed.

The thunder god’s terrible grip caught Alebion there, as he swirled in for a death-blow, and suddenly the slow and steady, merciless attacker was the panicked victim, splashing about for some escape from Thunner’s brutal hands.

None could be found.

When the killing was done, Thunner heard the voice again, and it told him to open his eyes. There, his newfound friend bathed the salt-brine from them, and there restored his sight.

Before him was a tiny robin redbreast; Ruddock was his name.

Thunner thanked the bird heartily, swore that should he ever find himself in need again, he’d call upon the service of that reddened little Ruddock, who had braved the storm of wrestling gods.

With Alebion defeated, Thunner could set to work on clearing his erstwhile kingdom; the scouring of Albion there began.

Through the land, then, Thunner cleaved, and much battle there was, for much time. He dug deep rocks from earth to make his camp, near to a place today called Thursley. Here he returned, time and again, to feast on his oxen and take his ever-needed rest between the bouts.

With Alebion dead, the ettins and the undergods Thunner pursued focused mainly on evasion, though when caught they would battle ruthlessly. Often Thunner would track them over countless miles, and when he grew weary of killing with axe and chariot he would go unarmed and on foot, to better test himself, grappling and rolling in the fresh and still-young earth.

Ettins, though, are unpredictable prey, and many were insane. Thunner oft would wake from slumber to an attack, at which he would call his Heofenfyr to him and hope his reflexes were sharp enough to survive. On one occasion he was hacked at in his sleep by a particular foe named Deofol, whilst encamped near Thursley – the thing had found his axe, and tried to use it against its master, but Heofenfyr’s flames extinguished, and at the moment just before the strike, loyal Heofenfyr’s head did turn.

When Thunner woke to this, Deofol dropped the weapon and fled, leaping high across graves where Thunner had lain what remained of former ettins. As Thunner pursued, he dug into the ground, scooped up as much as he could hold, and hurled it at the enemy, knocking him flat, then raced to the final kill.

He tore at the earth there, searching for the buried escapee, and before he knew it up was down and down was up, and he was digging himself out from the very earth he searched through – in the distance, Deofol fled, having hurled the earth at him from out the very hole he’d made. They call the great hollow that was left there Deofol’s Punchbowl, today, whilst the graves on which he sped are known as Deofol’s Jumps, on the Hampshire edge of what now is Surrey.

Thunner spent a long time, then, tracking this quarry, and followed its trail up and down, round and about, eventually knowing enough of his enemy to set up a hide, and lay in wait. This he did at a hill today called Treyford.

For thirty hot days and thirty cold nights, Thunner lay in wait. Though ettin after ettin passed, and though each time they did, strong Thunner hurled his Heofenfyr, and knocked them stony dead, still not a sign appeared of Deofol.

Finally, when five new graves surrounded Treyford Hill, Thunner saw him in the distance. Closer he got, and closer, and then when Thunner saw the yellow of his eyes, Heofenfyr flew. With a flicker Deofol was gone, and axe flew through the air as Deofol danced and capered ’cross the barrows of what had recently been his kin.

With a roar of frustration Thunner hurled a rock, which his target deftly avoided, cackling as he fled. The rock is still there, men say, and again, the ettin graves are known to all about as Deofol’s Jumps.

The chase thereafter took Thunner and Deofol far about the land. In what now is Oxfordshire, at a place since named Taston, Thunner almost had him – hurled stone after stone as his foe ran circles about him, ’til Thunner dizzied himself with spinning and collapsed. The stones can still be found there, near to where he fell, by those that know how to look.

But once again, Deofol had escaped.

Thunner took to his chariot, then, and rode around the skies in hunt. Dinne, of course, was a loud and raucous ride, and all knew the thunder god came when he rode in it, and Deofol hid from him with ease. So Thunner called once more on Ruddock, and as the great god thundered round about the skies, making sure to be as raucous and as loud as possible to draw all ears and eyes, the tiny Ruddock red-breast flitted, unseen, to all the places that the god was not.

Ruddock soon found what he sought, and when he had he flew once more to the shoulder of Thunner and whispered in his ear that Deofol hid out upon a far peninsula, to the north, in what today is ceremonially Cheshire, and that he was aided in his rangings by the magic of a thyrs, which dwelt high in a certain cave set deep into a white and thrusting peak in what we now call Staffordshire.

So Thunner then rode Dinne across the Tree and to the otherworld of Fairy, Elfland, and there he had a harp made, paid for with the bones of things that he had slain. A harp it was, of elven-craft, cursed to fill the mind and to obsess the one that played it.

Thunner then returned to Middle Earth, and he clambered and he climbed, and he galloped and he clawed, until he found the cave of the thyrs, and at its entrance was a guardian, amorphous in the light.

The strange wight asked Thunner why he sought to enter, and Thunner told the guardian, truthfully, that he had brought a present for the mighty thyrs, a token of respect, and showed him then the shining elvish harp.

The gusting guardian was impressed. Thunner was given entry.

On he went, into the viscera of the cave, until he came upon the thyrs, and bowed.

‘Oh great and craft-wise thyrs, in all due honour to your magic and to you, I here present a token of esteem – this fine and tricksy elven-harp, whose notes expand beyond the craft of any in the Middle Earth to play, even one with talent and ability such as yourself.’

‘You underestimate me, clatterer,’ the thyrs replied. ‘My powers are beyond the ken of such as you. A harp’s a simple thing to play, no matter what the gilding.’

‘I did not mean offence, oh mighty thyrs, but even you could not play such a thing as this. There is no shame in it.’

‘Of course I can, give it here.’

And Thunner did, and angrily the thyrs began to pluck, and then, confused, began to tune the instrument. ‘Yes, I see. Interesting.’ And the thyrs tried tightening a peg, and played with positions. Tried plucking and strumming, tried using a bow.

Thunner backed slowly out of the cave, but the thyrs didn’t notice. Too lost was he in tinkering and fiddling.

Some say he still is to this day.