I sing and wind the rope
Badly or well, as may be.
At the world-ash-tree
Once I wove,
When from the stem
There bourgeoned strong
The boughs of a sacred wood.
In the shadows cool
A fountain flowed;
Wisdom whispered
Low from its wave;
Of holy things I sang.
A dauntless God
Came to drink at the well;
For the draught he drank
He paid with the loss of an eye.
From the world-ash-tree
Wotan broke a holy bough;
From the bough he cut
And shaped the shaft of a spear.
As time rolled on the wood
Wasted and died of the wound;
Sere, leafless and barren,
Wan withered the tree;
Sadly the flow
Of the fountain failed;
Troubled grew
My sorrowful song.
And now no more
At the world-ash-tree I weave;
I needs must fasten
Here on the pine-tree my rope.
Sing, O sister—
Catch as I throw—
Canst thou tell us why?
THE SECOND NORN
[Winds the rope thrown to her round a projecting rock at the entrance of the cave.
Runes of treaties
Well weighed and pondered
Cut were by Wotan
In the shaft,
Which wielding, he swayed the world.
A hero bold
In fight then splintered the spear,
The hallowed haft
With its treaties cleaving in twain.
Then bade Wotan
Walhall's heroes
Hew down the world-ash-tree
Forthwith,
Both the stem and boughs sere and barren.
The ash-tree sank;
Sealed was the fountain that flowed.
Round the sharp edge
Of the rock I wind the rope:
Sing, O sister,
Catch as I throw;
Further canst thou tell?
The three Norns. See p. 103.