The Songs of Desire Works

• The First Song of Brynhild
• The Song of Goldbright
• The Song of Odin
• The Song of the Norns
• The Last Song of Brynhild

The First Song of Brynhild

I look around in this world.
Every step I tread with care.
In my heart, desire dwells:
A look, a gaze, a daring soul.

I look around in this world.
Perhaps I’ll find one like me.
In my heart, desire dwells:
Laugh at fear, forgetful doubts.

I look around in this world.
Missing someone to embrace.
In my heart, desire dwells:
Burning bright from distant deeps.

I seek for souls in empty shells.
Human shapes of hollow hulls,
Like driftwood lost in turbid sea:
The ebb and flow of human misery.

I look around in this world,
Seek a different place to be.
In my heart, desire dwells:
Space and time of another world.

I look around in this world,
Tracing fragments of the past.
In my heart, desire dwells:
Lost places, forgotten dreams.

I look around in this world.
Breathing dust of times that past.
In my heart, desire dwells:
Memories or dreams, too faint to tell.

I seek for souls in empty shells.
Human shapes of hollow hulls,
Like driftwood lost in turbid sea:
The ebb and flow of human misery.

The Song of Goldbright

Who made me take a troublesome trip,
calling me to the world of the living?
I've been covered with snow, battered with rain,
Drenched with dew: I've been long dead.

I see a girl, a clever disguise,
A forgotten past, a crossroad deal.
You want me to tell the stories of old,
Ancient tales, from the first I recall?

Then all the powers fulfilled their destiny.
You still don’t know? They pondered this:

I recall a North, also a South,
Between them lay the Gap of gaps.
A magical rift, impossible to cross,
Chaos rules its unthinkable depth.

From the North, the Land of Ice,
Sleet waves crashing with fervent rage.
Into the Gap of gaps, that stream keeps plunging,
An eternal well of rising mist.

Then all the powers fulfilled their destiny.
You still don’t know? They pondered this:

Frozen rivers and frozen mist,
Layers upon layers, an intricate web.
The frost keeps changing, a structure appears:
The image of man, a Giant of kin.

From the South, Surtur’s realm of Fire,
Drinks molten rock and spitting sparks.
Heat meets cold: animating ice,
From melting frost, droplets of life.

Then all the powers fulfilled their destiny.
You still don’t know? They pondered this:

I recall the birth of gods and etins,
From the deep Gap, they all crawled up.
You went forth boldly, a beauty amongst beasts:
A Valkyrie Rider, a chooser of slain.

With Odin only your allegiance was,
The mighty gardener of the Tree:
Yggdrasil the Cosmic Tree, all Nine Worlds' home,
With deep roots drinking from the Well of Fate.

Then all the powers fulfilled their destiny.
You still don’t know? They pondered this:

The Song of Odin

Here I die, the end as a beginning,
Giving myself as sacrifice to myself.
Seeking knowledge, gaining wisdom.
Happiness: a treasure only fools can own.

Why did you come here, Spirit of Desire,
Corrupting hearts of gods and humans.
Three times I threw you in flames to perish,
Three times you rose, from fire reborn.

Who else is there? My Valkyrie, my rider!
Desire for beauty led you astray.
I stopped your flight with the curse of humans:
No certitude, no peace, no help from pain.

Have you forgotten the cause of your curse?
Doomed to suffer a lonely heart?
Odin’s spell can only be broken,
By fearless love, piercing the darkness.

The Women that guard the Well of Fate,
Inscribe your future in the tree of the world,
Live your dream! Time’s running out!
Life is a flickering candle in the night.

Here I die, the end as a beginning,
Giving myself as sacrifice to myself.
Seeking knowledge, gaining wisdom.
Happiness: a treasure only fools can own.

The Song of the Norns

Once there was a world without worry,
The future open, like dreams at dawn.
Until there came three Giant's daughters,
Vastly mighty, from Ogres' domain.

"Being": the name of the first of the daughters,
"Becoming", the second; "Necessity", the third.
They sit at the roots of the mighty tree,
Guarding the waters of the Well of Fate.

Life and death they allot to all,
Their judgment carved in letters on twigs.
Everything bows to obey the words,
Power to those who knows how to speak.

Tell me, my sisters, tell me if you know,
What is there to prove, my life laid out?
Consider my course, do not keep it hidden.
Pain or sorrow, say what you must.

The gaze of a stranger, a sharp slicing blade,
Will cut your mailcoat of oblivion in tatters.
He is fair to behold, your beauty enchanting.
You care for nothing else, except that man.

Tell me, my sisters, tell me if you know,
What is there to prove, my life laid out?
Consider my course, do not keep it hidden.
Pain or sorrow, say what you must.

Oaths you will swear, though few you will keep.
You will be robbed of all delight.
Your love, your hope: as dreams are made on.
A second deception must follow the first.

Tell me, my sisters, tell me if you know,
What is there to prove, my life laid out?
Consider my course, do not keep it hidden.
Pain or sorrow, say what you must.

The Last Song of Brynhild

‘Why should you visit my dwelling, scatter-brain?
Washing a man’s blood from your hands.
Born to the worst luck in the world.
You ruined your love, destroyed your dreams.’

Don’t taunt me, creature of desire,
Though I’ve been off with the humans.
I’ll be thought nobler than you,
Wherever folk know our descent.

I have seen the beginning of time itself,
Witnessed the birth of gods and giants.
I’ve loved, and lost, following my heart:

Cursed by Odin to human ignorance.

Following my heart,
Following my heart,
Following my heart.

Someone who never knew any fear,
He broke through and sliced my shackles.
He alone seemed better than all the rest.
But I found out what I never wanted:

That they’d tricked me in the twilight of dawn,
But we two shall never be torn apart.
Him and I together,

We shall never be torn apart.

I have loved,
I have lost,
I have lived.