Tales of the Wyrm, Volume 1

by D. Alexander Neill

Fourth Rune: The Deed of Bræagond Æyllian

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  (verbal tradition, as told by Corrobustus Oakheart)

  Fair Ælyndarka, child of wood, right weary of the courtly life

  Called to her brother Bræagond, and bade him to attend her.

  In mottled grey, with bow in hand she sang farewell to towers tall,

  To hunt in glades of forest bright, where Hara willed to send her.

  From Astrapratum, Meadow-Star, they rode through night and day spans three,

  Unto the foot of mountain-fells, in search of sport to cheer them;

  Right fleet they rode, yet in their haste, they moved with fair-folk’s craft and stealth,

  And though passed many a countryman, not one perchanced to hear them.

  On third-day’s eve, they reached a grove where hare and hart were gathering

  Concealed they their hard-blown mounts, and watched in silence wondering;

  The moonlight shone on mirrored mere, and starlight showered twinkling

  When through the great wood-wall there burst a baleful horror sundering.

  Tree-tall it stood, thrice height of elf, a darkling giant it seemed to them,

  With stone in place of bone and flesh, and fists of iron gleamed at them.

  Deep eyes of night descried their holt, and ‘round the mere it ran at them

  In thundering stride that cracked the night, while pale moon glow beamed at them.

  Bræagond hesitated then (though younger, wiser still he was)

  But Ælyndarka, full of fire, and proud of power, sprang from him,

  With orbs like sparks on summer’s eve, the giant eyed her fragile form,

  And mighty as a mountain’s fall, burst through the nets she spun at him.

  While Bræagond watched, his eyes aghast, the demon fell upon his kin

  Her arm, and staff of power, were brast, and swooning, Ælyndarka fell.

  At this, his sister’s deadly plight, his caution vanished in a trice;

  So stepped he forward, glaive in hand, and clairioning his woodsman’s call.

  Bright blade aloft, he stayed its charge, and scarred the creature’s granite brow;

  But though his blows rang swift and hard, it fell upon him, bellowing.

  And step by step he back was forced, and felt his hand-strokes weakening;

  His heart-strings nigh to sundering, in waxing dawn light yellowing.

  ‘Till at the last his ground he stood, astride his blood-kin’s fallen form

  As sunrise touched the broken wood, the stone-fell stood untiring

  Its fist blows thundered, swift and hard; the Lamp upon his face was wan;

  His eyes were closed, and thus he fell, to the black earth expiring.

  And then his call was answerèd; twin oak-hearts shambled from the glade;

  Twin elders of the forest-hall, who twice the height of stone-beast stood.

  Gnarled fists and fingers dealt the blows that shattered all to stone and sand

  And drove the demon from their land, to fall ‘neath bough in hallowed wood.

  When Ælyndarka woke again, the Lamp was passing to the west

  And all her heart was torn with pain; eyes red with tear-stained sorrowing,

  For on the sward her brother lay, white cold in death, his spirit fled;

  Yet victory touched his smiling lips, their parted crimson borrowing.

  When Ælyndarka came at last to Astrapratum, bearing him,

  She bound her hair in verdant bands, and keened in mourning dolorous.

  They buried him upon the Hill above the meadows of his home,

  And on his tomb they set a stone: “Hight Bræagond, the Valorous.”

  A hundred summers passed in fire; a hundred, and a hundred more,

  ‘Till elder brother fell in war, and Ælyndarka gained the crown.

  It never graced her gracious brow; ‘twas set on Bræagond’s snowy bier,

  and broken glaive became her rod, through growing years of great renown.

  ♦♦♦

  Gwen’s Notes

  Now, this one confused me, because I know three fellows named Bræagond Æyllian. The first one is the one that this story is actually about – Queen Ælyndarka’s younger brother. He’s been dead for hundreds of years. The second one is my old friend Breygon. He’s a half-elf, and his mother named him for the first one. She was the Queen’s grand-daughter, so Bræagond was her great-great-uncle. The third one is another of the Queen’s grand-children – Breygon’s mother’s older brother, who was ALSO named for the Queen’s younger brother. Confusing, right? Yeah, well what else do you expect from people that pride themselves on preserving traditional familial nomenclature, but who are also so long-lived that there can be ten generations from the same line alive all at the same time?

  I swear, elves make me crazy.

  Fifth Rune: Léoð ymbe Isenfýst

  (The Lay of Ironfist)

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  (From the Æfenléoð Hargóinna, by Harwéac Hargóin)