Jim Johnston's Norsery Rhymes
Vali and Vili
If Vali, if Vili,
Were inclined to be silly,
How would you tell their tale?
Vali will laugh after Ragnarok,
And Vili will blow like a gale.
Rhyme and Rune
A rhyme and a rune
And a nice jiggy tune,
With Bergelmir drowned in a torrent.
A blight and a blow,
Hailstone and snow,
How the jotun died was abhorrent.
When Aegir went sailing
When Aegir went sailing upon his great ship
Slippety, slippety, slippety slip!
With his daughters around him as quick as a whip
Slippety, slippety, slippety slip!
Heimdall went fishing, alone in his boat,
Joggety, joggety, joggety joat!
His fishing line snared them and kept them afloat
Joggety, joggety, joggety joat!
Aegir went belly-up and split all his sails
Nackety, nackety, nackety nails!
While his girls started bailing with holes in their pails.
Nackety, nackety, nackety nails!
Mischievous Heimdall drank from his ale-horn
Snaggety, snaggety snaggety snorn!
And made them all wish they had never been born!
Snaggety, snaggety, snaggety snorn!
Parp! Parp!
Valkyries
Choosers of heroes
Selecting the slain,
The Valkyries ride
To the battle again.
Knarrs in the Night
There was a knarr met a knarr
In a narrow fjord;
Says one merchant to the other:
“May I come abjord?”
“You may come aboard,
When Bifrost roofs the sky,
And skinny fish jig in the dish
With moonbeams in their eye.”
The first merchant: “Be like that!”
The second: “Don't you like it?”
They soon sailed off – the rainbow roofed,
And the skinny fish cried, “Hike it!”
Troll
A troll when I stroll in the evening,
A troll when I roll my bread,
A troll when I pole my lava,
A troll when I loll my head.
A troll when my curse is cast,
A troll when my curse is over,
You Æsir hammer us ettins,
As a cobbler bangs on his last.
A troll when Æsir have trouble,
A troll when sword-blades are dulled:
There's nothing like being an ettin
When an Æs's blood-mead is mulled!
Apple-Ade
Idunn, Idunn, apple-maid,
Apples you are holdin',
When you squeeze your apple-ade
The Æsir's horns are golden.
Golden are their drinking horns,
Raised on high on golden morns.
Apple, apple, Idunn-fruit,
Are you ripe for eatin'?
Apple-tree from branch to root,
Surely takes some beatin'.
When the Æsir drink your juice
The bonds of ill and age are loose.
Vidar and Magni
Vidar and Magni one day rode out
Heading for Midgard or there about;
Magni challenged a race to the hill:
Vidar averred, “There's a wolf I must kill!”
Two Rivers
Noisily the rivers trip!
Away in spirals, off they rip!
Hvergelmir, your pools are rippling,
Leaves from willow trees are dripping,
Leaves from alders, roots are gripping,
Shadows on the banks are stippling.
Plunging torrents, where salmon leap,
The wisdom of their secrets keep;
Vaðgelmir, your banks are steeper,
Rocks are darker, shadows leaping,
Secrets for the ocean's keeping
Are brought back to the currents deeper.
The Swastika and the Sun-Wheel
The sun-wheel and the swastika
Were bound as with elastic-a,
Because she spun before the sun
The sun-wheel stuck with mastic-a.
The swastika, with crooked arms,
Believed the sun-wheel's sleekit charms;
For one so chaste, she made all haste,
To marry to a man-at-arms.
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