The Hero with a Thousand Hands


 * The Hero with a Thousand Hands
 * by Sydney Webb
 * 25 October 2001

(50 SE. Tuesday.)

Snorri Knutsson shivered in his cave. Few villagers dared shelter him and he would not place the danger upon them would they were.

The godar eked out a miserable existence. Sometimes villagers left out food -- for him, for trolls, who knew? On other occasions he must steal to stay alive. He felt like a thrall doing so but then these days he felt like a thrall whatever he did.

These men of the House of Submission! Everything old was of no account, everything must be made new. But new meant hollowness, there was no place for old legends, old wisdom, old healing, even old art. Jewelry, sculpture -- melted down or broken.

As a godar, a priest of Tyr, Snorri was a repository of wisdom, passed down from his father Knut, who in turn learned from his father Erik and his father Olaf before him. Snorri could still recite his lineage back 18 generations, to Great-mother Ase herself, who was visited by the God.

When Snorri thought of the God, he didn't mean the God, Tyr was one of many. But Tyr was special to the Tyrsson clan, not just through lineage but reward for faithful service. Not that reward was uppermost on Snorri's mind at present. To whom else can I turn? thought Snorri, Tyr's words are all I have.

But Tyr's words did not burn hot like the words of the House of Submission. Tyr's words were legends, legends to fill boys with awe, to strengthen warriors for battle and to give old men courage when facing illness and death. Submission promised salvation from ills, so it seemed. Yet the old wisdom was simpler -- whatever you face has been faced time and time before -- here is how men of the past faced such adversity -- here is how you can face it like a man, too.

Legends were a comfort now. Yes, Snorri was a hidling in a cave. But was not Odin Himself a hidling from the frost giants? Ah, Odin the Sky God! Grand-sire Erik had told him of the stories from his own grand-sire's days. Odin had just been a Sky God once, and not the All-Father. Tyr, God of War and Justice had been pre-eminent. But as the people had settled down, they became farmers and reliant on the Sky God's favors. Not that turning their back on Him had harmed the crops so far, thought Snorri bitterly.

In a way it was a boon that he and Frida had not been granted a son to be a godar after Snorri. Frida and the girls had remained behind in Trondheim. It was not fair to ask the family to take on Snorri's life as a vagrant. In time, no doubt, his daughters would marry men of Submission. But he had taught Embla, Ingrid and Gro well; they would pass down the old legends to their children and the children would do likewise.

Submission! One God you could not see, could not even represent! How could one God meet the needs of all the people? The woman in the travail of childbirth must cry out to Frigg. Before that, for the gift of fertility, she must seek the blessing of Freya. The craftsman would sacrifice to Welan and so it would go. A woman or man could be indebted to many Gods in their time and this was only meet, for the Gods collectively were the protectors of all mankind. Yet now the people became thralls of the House of Submission. And from the East came stories of an even stranger faith -- Rainbow Submission. Rainbow Submission was truly an affixing-things-to-other-things madness worthy of Loki himself.

Ah, Loki, the Trickster God! He would ally with frost giants if it would suit his purpose. Truly the times now were like Ragnarok, the Twilight of the Gods.

He heard footfalls down the hill. A band of men of Submission, belted and armed, were climbing purposefully towards his cave. Snorri grasped his sacerdotal dagger. If I can just take one, he prayed, a final sacrifice to You.

He would not wait to be taken in his cave. Springing forwarded he sang the berserker chant taught to him by his father,


 * "Oh grave where is thy victory?
 * Oh death where is thy sting?
 * Come when thou wilt and welcome!
 * Secure in Tyr I sing!"

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