Just landless sea and sky
He saw now all around.
His heavy head asked why,
And shame within him found.
His thirst had so prevailed,
With appetite so hot,
That with them he had sailed,
If this he willed or not.
The others swift condoled,
That not all bad would be,
And with the thought consoled,
Soon Germany to see.
To Germany now sent,
With monks to live and learn,
Koknesis seemed content,
New wisdom thus to earn.
But visits soon he paid
And time spent with an earl,
There to the knights displayed
His strength in jousting's whirl.
All there his skill admired,
His agile arm's strong weight.-
But news was not acquired
About Laimdota's fate.
But later, there he heard,
That in a cloister's court,
A woman was interred,
Thence from the Baltic brought.
The earl desired the maid,
To seize her deemed it right
The cloister's grounds to raid,
And steal her in the night.-
Her fate Koknesis knew,
Thus earnest vow he gave,
The unknown maiden true,
From such a fate to save.
When at the cloister gate,
Laimdota's face he saw,
He felt an endless hate,
And caution was no more!
And thus the slaughter grew,
No mercy would he show;
The earl's son, humbled, too
For misdeeds pain must know.
Scene 3: In the Realm of the North Wind
The boatmen's song summons the North Wind's Daughter
Long parted from the quay,
Thus sang the sailor folk,
Upon the Northern Sea,
Good fortune to invoke:
"Oh father, build a ship,
Oh mother, weave the sail,
We seek straight from the slip,
The North Wind's Daughter pale."-