Another light piece from the Columbus House of Scribes. Enjoy.

When All You Have is a Hammer...
1027 words | By D. R. Spires

T'was written by a Sage of Old,
"This world was made up for the bold!"

...And bold he was. He had taken her as his, though so many beasts, gods and forests, glens, lakes and mountains cried out that the thing he did was wrong. For him there could be no wrong for she had looked favorably upon him with that akin to love and devotion, in the way she had looked upon all who beheld the grandeur of her presence. Still, he had been the only one to physically, forcefully take her.

But what if Time is make believe,
A clever trick from someone's sleeve;

Their flight from the lowest valley of Ásgarð westward to the height of the mountains of his Valhöll had been abrupt, swift and sure, to the frosting foot of Fannaråki and mighty Galdhøpiggen , where the relentless storm swept the hills and mountains with a freezing wind and icing rains, filling chasms and sweeping to the flooded plains below. As a noble creature of the world and silhouetted against the cragged flashes and the ominous glow from the dark clouds, Óðinn held his great spear Gungnir defiantly high to the heavens, his long beard and blue cloak flying in the wind. He cried out to the forces abounding all about for the salvation of all mankind, new now in this cold and violent place.

And all that was and e'er shall be,
Are lost to places none may see?

“Cease this deluge!” his great voice boomed to the skies, drowned in the galing winds. “I command you! You!”

Unabated the storm persisted, and there came a sharp reply to this mighty shout, in the form of a woman’s scream that drew Óðinn’s attention to the dark hollow he had blown into the face of Galdhøpiggen’s cliff. The owner of that scream he knew well, for this was Fjörgyn , his friend, his counsel, his helper ... his wife’s bane. He spun away from the new cavern, gazing again toward the outraged monsters who had pursued them, the fierce mountain giants who sought now to physically blow this deceitful knave and all his kind from their land.

Trekking Tracks in Fourth Dimension,
To ease this world of all her tension;

“Jǫrð ... is ... mine!” he warned the winds. “My ... claim ... is upon her!”

His wondrous Fjörgyn was the daughter of Nótt , the midnight goddess and generous mother of all gods. Here too was her father Annarr , the very essence of the water that now pelted his daughter’s lover’s continence with all the ferocity of a sleeting hurricane. Now alone and with child, Jǫrð, the compassionate earth-goddess of eons gone, cried out her lover’s name into her parents’ fury, her own rage shaking their small hideaway.

The Venture-Tracks of things to be,
The likes of lives there yet to see.

“A hero!” Óðinn then shouted to the darkened skies. “One born for all Valhöll! Hear me, Annarr! Nótt! This day I am father! I give you a grandson the likes you have never beheld! Giant! Giantess! I send you your god!”

In a crack of thunder there appeared at Óðinn’s side a new man, Thunar by name, standing as foretold and holding high the mighty mallet, a gift from the maliciously irreverent Loki. He stood tall and proud, defiant as his own father and bearing a symmetrical form of such perfection, a porcelain complexion without mark or blemish, his red beard full, his shoulder-length hair whipping in the gale force. His short mallet appeared to be of stone but was of a dark substance harder than any known iron, bearing upon its head the name Mjǫllnir.

To know of time and where it went;
To see all things as Heaven-sent.

Óðinn looked upon his newborn son with a fleeting smile of admiration. Around the new man’s corded neck lay a heavy chain bearing and glinting at his broad chest the iron symbol of his hammer. The mighty arm of Thunar was drawn back and the cast was made, his mallet flying high through the winds to disappear in the low, storming clouds, whereupon the skies lit up with a fury and thunderous applause, the undulating overcast swiftly blown away to reveal the warmth of the sun it had hidden from Óðinn’s woman.

In an instant, Thunar was gone from Óðinn’s side, flashing high into the bluing heavens, while Óðinn was as quickly returned to his lover’s side in the cavern, holding her to him. In her weeping relief, she clung tightly to him.

If all the world could only see,
The likes of lives there yet to be;

“This day, your parents are appeased,” he murmured to her ear.

Over his shoulder, she darted her gaze about the lighted grotto. “Where is my son?”

“Our son,” he corrected, drawing back to look into her eyes. “He has gone to introduce himself. He will soon return.”

“No harm to him, I beg...”

To warp the scheme of all that is,
And know that there is more than this.

“Do not beg, goddess. Our son, Thunar, will be known as Thor, the firstborn of Óðinn and so Thor Óðinnsen, a resolute presence built for this new world ... and know him to be far greater than merely ... incomparable.”

“My husband...”

He regarded her, his frowning glance halting her words. “My Jǫrð, I am still hers,” he murmured.

“Yes ... yes, Frigg .” She shook her head. “It will not be easy for him, the bastard son of even a ... a father of all that is...”

Óðinn chuckled softly to his lover’s fears. “Few easy things truly are. He shall gain prominence at my side within the walls of Valhöll.”

“...And Frigg?”

He looked into her loving eyes. “And Frigg. I must now return to her.”

“...And I?”

“Jǫrð ... you are all things, most blessed of Earth, Sky, Sea and Fire. Your prominence, my goddess, is in all life ... and so is known and everlasting.”

But I feel safe in what I know,
That seasons come and seasons go,
And Earth, like Time, will ever turn,
And Solar flares will ever burn.

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