Freya’s Cave

The suitors came to Freya’s cave--the giants with their their broken lumbering strides, their skin like ice that burned and their thick, rough, pillagers.  The wolves and the tricksters and the greedy dwarves and demon elves sundered from light.  They tore ruthlessly the moss that grew around the mouth of Freya’s cave. They trampled and cracked the rose quartz flooring , they scratched with their talons the shell-encrusted walls, they shattered the crystal that adorned the entrance and reflected distant lights like a beacon so that now it could no longer do its work and serve its mistress.  The suitors took jewels and radiant flowers from that once hallowed place.  They pummeled through with rough hewn swords and staves. The cave grew dark and frosty; no blooms grew in its wake.  The walls froze and the gleaming sheen of shallow spring that had run through Freya’s cave turned to ice and mud and slush.

Then he who serves Love came and found Freya weeping.  He spoke to her softly and heard her tales.  He stroked her tangled hair and sang to her his verses.  He filled her cave with amber beads and petals, horns of mead and flutes and feathered cloaks.  He brought a great cat to guard the entryway.  He stoked a fire and melted ice so that the spring returned.  The flowers scattered seeds and more blooms grew.  The cave swelled with radiance, exuded fragrance. He who serves Love and whom Love serves returned the crystal to its place and wooed it til it shook with light.  And then and then the elves emerged from deep in Freya’s cave and cried out as if in pain, the pain of birth, and sang their songs.