The Cry

The White Christ suffered
Or so they say
For sinners just like I

\’Pon a tree of pain
Piercèd by warrior\’s spear
He hung there and did die

In distant lands
From Golgotha hill
Taken down to lie

In cool stone tomb
For three long days
To walk the roads of Hell

This they say
This they they have told
For a thousand years or more

Yet tis not the Nailed God
Who comes a-knocking
Knocking at heart\’s door

Nay, no pale saviour
Crosses the threshold here
Tis instead bold Red Thor – his laughter ever near

With flaming eye
And mighty arm
He hallows all and keeps from harm

Thence after comes – slides and slips
Sly Laufey\’s son
With quick barbed tongue and scarrèd lips

With whitest arms
And knowing smile
Comes witch-wise Lady

Brising\’s gift now shining bright
I can think of no other goddess
To whom I\’d gift my nights

(Save for perhaps
The corpse-blue lass
From the deepest world below

Though cold she is
And freezing be her kiss
I\’ll honour her even hand

There down there
In her hall so grim
Midst misty Nifel\’s land

Queen she be
Smiles at me so I feel the skull beneath
Keeps the wisdom of the dead

My flesh and blood
Momento mori
The shining Raven\’s Head.)

And so the Ansur come
To take their place
In shining halls by soul\’s eye seen

The ancient gods
Now do return
Thus it has ever been

For the folk know deep
As blood
As bone and as breath

The old ways endure
Though lore is lost
They cannot be killed by a death

II
The White Christ died
For sinners just like me
Cried out aloud on the tree of pain – there at Calvary

To his Father he did call
The Prince of Peace
Bled and breathed his last

A god
And yet a man
So I was told

Destroyed death itself
And so passed
The age of gods of old

But as I grew
My heart did ache
For soon the call arose

On northern winds
Whispers I heard
Of roots that no man knows

And as I listened
I heard that shriek
That came from lands close by

No distant holy city
No life eternal
No desert preacher\’s cry

In these green lands
This island fastness
Of wind and rain and wave

The Nazarene had
One less soul
To shrive, forgive and save

For in that scream
I found my home
Roots deep and dark in fecund loam

That deathly groan
Agony and darkest awe
Reached out from long ago – from far Before

III
Three days White Christ
Spent in sunless lands
With gaping side and holes in hands

Yet thrice times this
And in dark night
Hung an elder mighty wight

Twas from that throat
I heard that cry
As Ygg grasped his doom and sought to die

Down he went
Fast as a spear
By his own arm sent

His brim be broad
His cloak be blue-black
His spear stops breath – buried in back

Not for sinners did the Old One die
Not for others
And Not for I

Nay for none but Himself
Did Dangler spin
From that branch – that killer of kin

Yet in His songs
I find my Self
And so do I wax well

Ancient visions and root-deep dreams
These tales untold –
I venture so to tell

By hidden runes
And secret ways
I walk the roads of Hell

And by the verge
Of serpent\’s heads
I do see a bloodless thing

Emptied and sucked dry by winelust
Gnawed by blind disciples
The sorrowing thorn-crowned king

I tip my hat and pass on by
Without regret
No word of a lie

For my path lies ahead
And also far behind
And my blood is icy cold

As I return to the ways of the folk and to honour the gods of old.