In preparation for the solstice sunrise
The Æsirs beat their biggest drums
Filling the nightless midsummer night
With a majestic boom-boom-hum
Heimdallr heralds dawn by blowing the mighty Gjallarhorn
By Thor the holy hammer Mjölnir is thrown
The air by lightning strikes is torn
The earth seeded with protective thunderstones
Freya dons her feather cloak to fly
Seeking girls born with seiðr powers
Sending dreamers her priestess cry
To ken, pick seven kinds of flowers
The first step on the Völvas path
To see the meaning of the magic runes
Only for those that fearless curiosity hath
The hearing of the Norns spinning tunes
From the clouds that Frigg has spun
A cleansing rain starts to fall
Nourishing this year’s harvest growth begun
Ensuring food for animals and folk all
Ask and Embla’s children rise
Woken by the storm sounds
Hearing the Goddess falcon cries
Know it’s time to attend to holy grounds
The world cleansed, all peoples awake
Æsir, elfs, humans, vanirs and fauns
Sol her chariot to heaven take
Raising the sun to solstice dawn
©RedCat
This is the poem I began composing as I lay listening to the thunder on the shortest night of the year. I’ve managed to learn a trick that makes me able to remember short stanzas even after sleep. I compose a short stanza, or maybe only a couplet. Then while focusing on the sound, rhythm and feeling of what I want the poem to become, I say the lines over, and over, and over. Until they are firmly set in my mind. I do something similar when walking and having an idea, but not wanting to stop to write it down. This technique works most of the time, and gets more and more reliable the more I use it. I think this is relatively easy for me to do because when I sang as a child, all songs and melodies had to be learnt by heart.
I’ve read more than once that there’s absolutely no evidence for any pre-Christian Midsummer or Solstice celebrations in the North, even though most people here think so. And while I accept that fact. I refuse to believe that any people this far north would have celebrated only Midwinter, when night is nearly, or wholly depending on how far north, all day long. And not celebrate Midsummer when there is no true night, only day, dusk and dawn. Or Midnight Sun if you’re far enough north.
So while my poem is based on real Norse mythology – Æsir Gods and Goddesses, magical items and folklore. The story itself is wholly dreamt up by me listening to thunder rumble and boom.
Below you’ll find a list of internet sources where you can read more on each included God or Goddess, item or folkloric belief.
Shared to and read at Open Link Night #295 – Midsummer Live at dVerse.
Also shared to:
earthweal weekly challenge: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAMTIME.
Writers’ Pantry #76: Whatever the Weather over at Poets and Storytellers United.
Promote Yourself Monday, June 28, 2021 at Go Dog Go Café.
Æsir, Vanirs and Elves
Freya
Frigg
Norns
Sol
Thor
Heimdallr
The Gjallarhorn
Mjölnir
Ask och Embla
To ken – Kenning
Seiðr – Magic
Thunderstones
Völva – Seeress
The world according to RedCat 
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