INTRO
 
Welcome to CHAPTER 70 of the Kinsmen Die podcast, home of fantasy fiction based on Norse mythology that’s written and read by me, Matt Bishop.

In this podcast I read my first novel, Kinsmen Die, one chapter at a time. And, with each episode, when it makes sense, I provide some commentary about the source materials I’ve referenced in the text.

There are 23 chapters left in the book. We’re nearly there.

Just as blind Hodr, the son of Odin and Frigg, is nearly back in Gladsheim. When we last were with him, he left his fiancee Alara in Ifington. He had been given a magic spear by the smith Lopt. When Hodr holds that spear, he can see again.

Hodr told Alara about the spear and offered to share the fruit of Yggdrasil with her. It would keep them both young for as long as they ate it. Alara refused the offer.

So, Hodr has to choose between continued life…and eventual death…with Alara or a long life without her.

He decided to return to Gladsheim and patch things up with his family and maybe ask his father to give the fruits to everyone in Alara’s family.

That’s where we find him now…on the road again.

Chapter Seventy
Hodr
After a pair of nights on the road to Gladsheim, Hodr had grown thoroughly tired of the rumble and scrape of the ironbound wheels of the smith’s cart on the road stones. The relentless sound had driven him inward and made him dwell on his failed attempt to persuade Alara to share Yggdrasil’s fruit with him. That same fruit now rode heavy in the bag looped around his shoulders. He still wasn’t entirely sure why he’d decided to visit his father except that it felt right to end what troubled him before trying to start something new—whatever that might be. Which in a way, he supposed, answered his own question.
“So quiet, Jarl Hodr,” Lopt said.
“Don’t call me that,” he said, reflexively. He still hadn’t donned his gold arm ring; it hung by a cord around his neck. All of the jarls and sons of Odin wore the same arm ring, a heavy, doubled loop of braided gold, one end a wolf’s head, the other a raven’s. It was a copy of Draupnir, the arm ring Odin wore.
“My apologies,” Lopt said, “but I don’t know what else to call you. With every mile we draw closer to Gladsheim you grow that much more…gruff…than you were in Ifington. It doesn’t suit you, my friend.”
Didn’t it? In Ifington he been free of his family and his past, though, were he honest, he’d often felt its shadow looming—family and past both—like an approaching storm on a hot summer’s day. He’d left Gladsheim blind and furious, but he was returning with his sight if not healed, then…replaced…was maybe the best word. And his anger?
As he sat, jostled and bounced by the cart, listening to the dull clunk of spears and swords, he didn’t feel any of that same rage that he’d taken with him from Gladsheim.
Maybe he would glimpse Gladsheim’s tall gates and Heimdall’s tower atop the sharp cliff that marked the crown of the city’s hill. The crown to which he must ascend. 
One of the cart’s wheels banged hard against the road and jarred him to say, “I’m not a true jarl, Lopt. I don’t rule a district.”
Lopt flicked the reins, the leather slapping against the broad back that loomed hazily before his half-seeing eyes. “Maybe, but you’re still one of the Alfather’s sons. That commands respect, as do your deeds in the Last War. You should wear that arm ring I’ve noticed beneath your shirt with pride.”
“Pride?” Hodr laughed. “People don’t want crippled heroes, especially if they’re an Odinsson.”
His blind eyes could see the lean gray shapes looming tall beside the road, with leafless fingers intertwined like bones on a battlefield.
He rolled his new spear, the smith’s gift, between his hands. “Yet as I hold this spear and see even this horse's ass in front of me—the one that broke my skull, I believe—I thank Aegir that our paths crossed. The horse and yours.” 
He thumped the spear’s butt against the planks of the cart beneath his feet. “My father will ask how you came by its runes, you know. Are you prepared for that?”
The cart creaked and rumbled down the road for a long time before the smith flicked the reins and asked, “Do we have to tell him?”
Hodr laughed. “You’ve never met my father, have you? My friend, the moment he sees this spear, he’ll notice the runes. I’ve no gift for magic, but he taught me the runes he knows. Most of the ones you used, I don’t recognize. He’ll insist on knowing where you got them.”
The cart banged and clattered along again. In Hodr’s spear-granted sight, Lopt looked spun from gray clay.
The smith flicked the reins again. “Maybe you could just use another spear while we’re there.”
“Well, now you have me worried. What magic did you use? My father and brother both failed to restore my sight, yet I stumble across an unheard-of smith from a small village—and I mean no offense by that—who succeeded where they did not?” He shook his head. “No, my father will demand an answer. My brother will be nicer about it, but he too will want to know how you did what you did.”
After another dozen heartbeats of rumbling, rattling cart wheels, Lopt’s shoulders slumped and he blew a long sigh. “I knew it couldn’t last, but at least you’ll speak for me, I hope. I have a Svartalvar chained to my forge.”
Hodr stiffened, and his grip tightened on the spear.
“I joke, of course,” Lopt said, grinning widely and glancing sidelong at Hodr.
The smith’s next words were drowned out by the banging rumble of an approaching cart. This close to Gladsheim, and with Midwinter only two nights away, many traders were heading home. And from the way this oncoming cart leaped and lurched, this particular man was anxious to be there. He raised a hand in greeting, shouted something, and was gone again, his rumble trailing after him like one of Thor’s storm clouds.
When it was possible to again be heard, Hodr said, “Don’t joke like that with my father.”
“Not funny, eh?” Lopt threw him a shadowy, lopsided grin.
Hodr snorted.
Lopt’s voice slid into the silence between the rumbles of their own cart. “The truth is, I don’t know where the runes came from. I learned my trade from my father, as he learned from his. The runes were a part of what was passed down—from my grandfather and his father before him. My father knew what the runes meant and how they should be used, but he was killed before passing all of what he knew on to me. When he used the runes on the weapons he crafted, he hid them—beneath the wrap on a sword’s hilt, on the inside of the axe’s head, by the wood on the spear’s tang. When he started doing that regularly is when the Einherjar started buying our weapons. And then I just kept doing what he’d done.”
Hodr exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Joking about the Svartalvar was not a good way to approach answering the Alfather’s questions. But, Odin would accept that the knowledge of the runes had been passed down over generations. That was how everyone learned. He would press for more detail, though. Just imagining how his father would hone in where the runes came from made him want to itch the scars where his eyes had been. Instead, he asked, “Who among the Einherjar accepts delivery of your weapons?”
“Their quartermaster. Man named Geirleikr. You know him?”
Know a man who’d probably been a baby when he’d last been in Gladsheim? Hodr snorted. “I might’ve known his mother or father. Who commands the Einherjar now?”
“Saglund, his name is. Met him once.”
“It was Jarnsaxa when I was last in Gladsheim. I heard that Garilon briefly took over after her.”
Lopt flicked the reins. “Saglund’s the one who started buying our weapons.”
As another cart rumbled closer, heading away from Gladsheim, Hodr fell silent. He took a long look at the dim shapes all around him. The tall trees. The hazy ground. He raised his hand in response to the salute of the trader approaching them—and then laughed aloud because he’d seen the man’s wave.
“I know what you’re thinking, Jarl.” Lopt’s voice was loud over the receding rumble. “The spear was a gift. I’ll stand before your father and brother and take whatever punishment they deal out.”
“Punishment?”
“For using those runes.”
“Have you provided weapons to our enemies?”
“I only sell to the Einherjar, like my father did. Well, maybe a weapon here and there to those who come asking, but they’re all Aesir. And I don’t put runes on those weapons.”
“Then I don’t think the Alfather will punish you. And if he tries, I’ll speak for you.” For all the good it would do. “He’ll certainly require you to show him all the runes you know and explain how you’ve used them.”
Lopt grunted, but said nothing. He flicked the reins again.
Hodr clapped his hand down on the smith’s heavy shoulder. “And if I know my father, he may even require you to move here and start teaching what you know. Better weapons to fight the Jotunn.”
“Move? Teach? My father said these runes should be kept secret.”
Hodr shifted the spear to his left hand and held it out to the smith. “Then take it back now, drop me at the gate, and ride away home again. I’ll keep your secret.”
The moment seemed to stretch out longer than the road they had left to travel. Hodr saw the smith’s right hand release the reins and move slowly toward the spear. He drank in the sight, hazy though it was, knowing that if the smith took back the spear he’d never see anything again.
He brought Alara’s face to his mind’s eye and savored it, too, like that last bite of the fruit he’d eaten. And might not ever taste again.
What would he do if Lopt took back the spear? Alara said she loved him as he was—blind and broken. Without this new sight, imperfect as it was, he could become the warrior he’d once been. He need not return to Ifington or to Alara. Did he only love her because he was half the man he’d been?
The smith’s hand closed over his.
“Keep it, Jarl,” Lopt said, quietly. “I said I’d face the Alfather’s judgment. I meant it.”
Relief bloomed in Hodr’s heart—and he realized that, if he was honest, he still had no idea what choice he’d make.


OUTRO
Well, folks, that was CHAPTER 70 of Kinsmen Die. I hope you enjoyed it.

Lopt joined Hodr on his journey to Gladsheim—one final shipment of weapons for the Einherjar in his cart.

Lopt provides a little detail on how he learned the runes he used on the spear. And Hodr remains undecided about what path he’ll choose. But for now, he’s headed to Gladsheim.

Next week, we’re back with Odin and his journey into the land of the dead.

Until then, if you have the time and inclination, please rate and/or review the podcast — that helps boost the show’s visibility. As does sharing it.
  
As always, I’m going to read from both the Bellows and Larrington translations of the Havamal, the sayings of the High One, Odin himself.

Bellows, Verse 70
It is better to live than to lie a corpse,
The live man catches the cow;
I saw flames rise for the rich man's pyre,
And before his door he lay dead.


Larrington, Verse 70
It is better to live than not to be alive, it’s the living man who gets the cow;
I saw fire blaze up for the wealthy man, and he was dead outside the door.

Here’s my take on this verse which I’m interpreting from the perspective of an older Odin — who knows what doom awaits him — looking back on his life and giving advice to the listener or reader.

The message in first two lines is: Endure. Only if you are alive can you catch a cow. In Norse society and many ancient cultures, cattle were synonymous with wealth. Odin is saying, sure maybe your life sucks now…but it’s better than being dead. Endure. Strive for wealth. Only if you’re alive can you get it. If you’re dead, that’s it.

The last two lines are problematic. I looked at Kodratoff’s commentaries…and he cites some other sources…basically, the original language isn’t clear…or we don’t know how to translate it…meaning that we’ve lost the context for what the original words meant.

The fire could be the wealthy guy’s house going up in flames, meaning he lost everything including his life. Or that’s a fire honoring the passing of the wealthy guy who, being dead, can no longer enjoy all the wealth he had.

But typically, wealthy people were buried with their precious belongings in the belief that they could still use them. Kings and jarls were buried in barrows or inside mountains where they lived on. Or sometimes the dead came back — the draugr — and tormented the living.

I think — and this is just my opinion — that Odin is full of sorrow. He has seen his death. And he cannot see beyond his death. For him, death is the end. So wealthy or poor, it is better to be alive than dead…and what he wants to do is keep on living so he’s at least got a chance to catch that cow.

Thanks for listening.