INTRO
 
Welcome to CHAPTER 87 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.

This week, we’re back with Hodr.

The last time we were with Hodr, he’d ended up in the family reunion he’d intended but had tried to postpone. Turns out that his father, Odin, isn’t home after all, so Hodr goes into the Midwinter feast alongside his sister Hermod. Let’s rejoin him, now.


Chapter Eighty-Seven
Hodr
Hermod found Hodr a spot near the raised platform where the rest of his family, aunts and uncles sat, Hodr spoke with Hermod for a short time—more shouted, really, given how loud the hall was—but now that the smith had joined them she’d grown reticent, had a thrall bring new tankards of ale and heaping platters of roast boar and fish and fresh-baked bread, and returned to her seat on the raised platform to sit beside Baldr, Nanna, and their mother. 
Hodr knew Nanna was present because he caught a whiff of her wildflower scent on an eddy in the hall’s hot air. It lacked the power over him it once had—Alara’s influence, no doubt.
“You must be thrilled your long-delayed reunion went as well as it did,” Lopt said, back yet again on the same topic. His words tumbled out like coins from a purse. “I liked your mother. Strong and hard, like winter, but kindness there, too. And such gentleness in your brother’s face. Was he really a doughty warrior long ago? I also see the resemblance in your sister, though she’s lovelier than you, I think, not that you’ll mind me saying it. Tall and willowy like her mother, but without that hard edge experience brings. Your brother’s wife is such a contrast with both of them—more like a cloud at sunset, brushed with yellows and light reds.”
Hodr tried to focus on the raucous folk around them rather than on Lopt’s voice. Was he trying to impress? Or was he just nervous and drunk? Either way, the fancy words rang false and he didn’t want to hear them anymore. But for a man who’d never been in the company of the realm’s jarls, maybe it was the only way the smith could be expected to act. So maybe he should be a little more understanding. A little more tolerant, like Baldr would no doubt be.
And sitting here, having finally returned—and having received such a warm welcome—Hodr found it hard to resent the smith much less anything else. Not his lack of sight nor the attention on his brother nor all the praise Lopt heaped on him.
He had his own life now. It had taken him fifty winters to find it and to find a woman who loved him. But he’d found them both. Just the thought of getting back to Alara warmed him.
And who knew what the Norns had carved for him? With the smith’s spear, maybe he could try to be a warrior again. Or maybe he could become Jarl of Ifington—with all the trade passing through it was a big enough to warrant a full jarldom.
If his father agreed to give Yggdrasil’s fruits to Alara and the children she bore him, maybe becoming jarl would work out. But if his father didn’t agree, well, he’d return to Alara and live a full, happy life with her and then, when he was old, gray and bent-backed, he’d board the ship that would take him down the Gjoll and pass back into the Gap. All those here in this hall had that doom set for them.
Except for his family.
Deep voices called for folk to make the circle wider. Like the flap of a wet sail, the crowd lurched into motion. Wood scraped on wood. The floor planks creaked and flexed, a rumbling as of a massive barrel reached his ears. Must be the ancient, scarred stump being rolled in. The procession would be getting close, then.
Hodr cocked an ear. Yes, just there. The mournful sound of the flutes drifted in. He stood.
Lopt’s knees popped as he rose beside him. “What’s happening?”
“The procession is outside. The last warrior will fall before Rán, and she’ll step inside.”
“Your brother is stepping down from his chair!” Hodr heard a note of eagerness in Lopt’s voice. “He’s taking off his clothes?”
He nodded. “Everything but his breechcloth.”
 The floor boomed; plates and cups rattled and rolled.
“The tree stump’s in the center of a circle, in the wide space between the fire pits,” Lopt exclaimed.
Indeed it was. This hall had been built with a broad belly to not only serve as the gathering place of Gladsheim—for a very long time every Aesir had eaten, drank and celebrated here. It was only in the last hundred or so winters that it mostly hosted Gladsheim’s wealthier residents.
The deep booming of the drums filled the hall while the flutes sang their airy counterpoint. Booted feet tramped in. Those in the hall began to stomp in rhythm with the drums.
Lopt gasped at the same time everyone else in the hall did. From the smell of hot blood, Hodr knew what the smith was seeing. “Isn’t this ritual conducted in Ifington?”
“Not on this scale,” the smith stammered, sounding awed.
Hodr pictured the ritual in his mind. A blood- and gore-soaked young woman, naked, eyes wild from whatever herbs Idunn’s priestesses fed her, cavorted on a wide platform that rippled with blue silks as if she rode the ocean itself rather than on the shoulders of a dozen burly young warriors.
Tonight, she was Rán, death herself, come among them. She thrust with a spear in one hand, to slay those who displeased her, and a green net in the other to drag them down and down to her home beneath the waves.
The crowd cheered. Lopt laughed aloud. Baldr, pale, naked flesh daubed with gold and blue pigments, would have stepped onto the tree stump as Aegir himself, at least tonight, to defend his people, the Aesir, from the ever-hungry Rán.
The stench of blood and offal hung heavy in the air. Lopt coughed and said, “So much blood!”
“A thousand or more animals died to bring us this feast,” Hodr said. “Plenty of blood and guts to spread around.”
Now the pounding of the drums swelled, grew harsher, evoking the sound of battle itself, of axes against shields, of churning waves grinding longships against a rocky coast, while the flutes sang of life, conjuring images of grass pushing up beneath snow, of purple flowers opening in green fields, of white clouds passing swiftly away after a storm. 
Hodr remembered this part well. As a boy, he’d loved being terrified by this ritual. From atop her sea-like platform, Rán thrust out with her spear, spinning, twisting and jumping in a way that would get you killed on the battlefield, and then hurling out her net and dragging it back in as if she’d caught a corpse.
Young girls spent the summer months training and competing for the role of Rán, but deathless Baldr had played Aegir’s part since before he’d taken his first bite of Yggdrasil’s fruit. His invariable presence lent Gladsheim’s Midwinter ceremony a far different tenor than any other he’d ever seen.
The pounding drums and shrieking flutes were close now, along with the heady stink of blood. The planks trembled and shook. Hodr steadied himself on the table behind him. In his mind he was back in his last battle, the one that had blinded him, but he shoved it away, gritted his teeth and steadied himself.
The net swished above his head. Blood pattered across his face. Lopt shouted and sang and leaped in place only to stagger backward into Hodr, jostling free still more memories of this event from when he’d had eyes to see.
As a boy, and then a young man, he’d been enthralled by the lithe naked young woman and then horrified by the blood and stink of death. More than once he’d spent the night with Rán after the ritual was over. He’d come to love that almost as much as he’d loved the actual deadly dance of spears. Up until a snow bear had spat venom into his face.
Yet he also remembered how even back then the older warriors, veterans of one skirmish or battle or war, depending—he’d seen more than a hundred of these Midwinter rituals in Gladsheim alone—would draw back from the young, naked woman, soaked in blood, who whirled a net above her head and jabbed with a spear in time to the music pouring from the pounding drums, shrilling flutes, and dancing harps, while the young warriors, fresh, perhaps, from bloodless, cold patrols of the Breach would be drawn in, laughing as they pretended to dodge Rán’s spear or duck beneath her net.
The procession circled toward the hall’s center and the stump beside which Baldr would now be standing. The flutes changed their tone, becoming seductive like Aegir’s imagined voice. Lilting. The drums and harps eased off, still present, still loud, but subservient to the flute’s songs. The music conjured visions of a warm field bathed in light.
“Put down your spear,” they sang. “Lay aside your net. For me. I’ll show you there’s more to life than death.”
And as they sang, Hodr saw it clearly in his memories, Baldr stepped up onto the stump.
The drums, Rán’s voice, beat like waves upon rocks, a counterpoint to the flute’s argument.
Death is the end, the drums pounded. As sure as the tides, as sure as my spear driven through flesh.
And yet from death, new life, the flutes argued.
All come to me, the drums roared.
But to you from me, the flutes sang.
I end you, the drums beat.
And I begin you, the flutes rejoiced. But set all that aside. For one night, lie here with me.
The crowd roared out in horror as this young Rán, as bloody and angry-seeming as the one cavorting in his memory, screamed her denial of Aegir’s offer. Her answer was a hurled spear, a promise flying faster than wind-tossed spray.
Hodr saw it in his mind’s eye. The long, low arc, aimed perfectly, flat, swift and deadly. Aegir, arms wide and welcoming, chest exposed, a sunny smile on his face. The spear struck his breastbone. He grunted with the impact, knocked back a step.
But the spear bounced off and Aegir stood unhurt, no mark upon his skin. Aegir snatched the spear from the air and broke it over his knee and held the broken pieces above his head.
The crowd went wild—screaming, shouting, dancing, crying—while the flutes soared in triumph and the harps joined the song. The drums beat on, more quietly, cowed, perhaps, as the ocean after a terrible gale. Not subservient, never that, but won over. 
And so it was done, mostly. Aegir had triumphed. Life proved stronger than Death. Rán, beaten, would drift in and succumb to him.
The crowd, inflamed by the music, kept up their din. Beside him, Lopt screamed as enthusiastically as everyone else.
But Hodr did not. Nor did his family, he suspected.
In much older days, this ritual involved the physical culmination of what the pounding drums and shrilling flutes merely suggested. But as the Aesir had grown more sophisticated in their longhouses and walled cities, Rán’s surrender had become a symbolic kiss and embrace. Which was just as well, since even he, without a thread of seidr in his veins, felt the primal magic of this ritual.
As did many others since Hodr assumed that now, as in nights past, the men and women were pairing off, stumbling out into the night to enact their own ritual.
Hodr sipped his drink.
“That was unbelievable,” Lopt said, grabbing Hodr’s shoulder in one strong, hot hand and shaking him. “Thank you for bringing me. What I’ve seen all my life pales in comparison.”
A flush passed through Hodr and his stomach burbled. He shook Lopt’s hand off. “Just wait. It gets better.”
The barrels of stones were being rolled out, the tremendous thunder drowning out even the crowd’s persistent roar.
“Is this when—” Lopt began, excitedly.
“Indeed,” Hodr said loudly. “In years past, you were allowed to throw pretty much any weapon at Aegir—when the role was played by my brother, of course. I’m not sure why my mother restricted it to stones this year.”
“Will you participate?” Lopt asked. “People are gathering round.”
He laughed. “I’d be lucky to hit the far wall.”
Lopt’s hot, strong hand squeezed his shoulder again. “I’ll guide your aim and tell you exactly where to throw.”
The dull thud of stone against flesh and the laughter that followed said that this part of the ritual had begun. Not that it had much reverence to it. The flute’s lilted above the dull roar of the crowd and the drums’ steady, rolling rumble.
A flush came over Hodr. He put his cup down; must be the ale. Lopt’s grip loosened on his shoulder. He had wanted to come back here and make peace with his family. Maybe participating would help show that.
Hodr smiled. “Sure, why not. Good way to start off my first night back in Gladsheim.”
Lopt clapped him on the back. “I’ll be right back.”
Feeling hot, Hodr tugged open the collar of his overtunic and sat on the table. He found a cup and took a small sip to wet his suddenly dry throat. This was wine, sweet and cool. It eased the drumming in his head, but the heat of Lopt’s hand on his shoulder lingered, and the pattern his thumb had traced. Pattern?
Laughter and shouts, grunts and shoving, the smacking of lips, the clatter of cups on tables, the rattle of rocks on the floor crowded in on his thoughts as if he were the one at the center of the circle. The flutes shrieked and he winced; the pounding drums made his heart beat faster.
He dropped his cup and rubbed at his temples. He worked his jaw and, with a pop, the noise drew back like a prowling cat.
“Here you go, Jarl,” Lopt said, leaning in close to speak in his ear. The smith pressed something into his hand. It felt like the spear the smith had given him. Behind the smith’s dark face and shadowy form, people drifted like fog over water.
“How did you get this? My mother said—”
A bright smile broke out on Lopt’s face, shimmering like the air above a sunlit rock. “What? That’s not your spear, my friend. I just brought you a stone.”
Mouth dry, Hodr felt the cool, smooth surface of a river stone in his hand. His thumb found a shallow groove like wood grain and ran along it. The rock felt slightly slick, as if it were coated in the oil he used to hone his spear’s blade.
He rubbed the side of his head.
“It’s not your spear, Jarl Hodr, it’s just a rock,” Lopt repeated.
Hodr turned toward the smith. The man’s eyes burned like forge coals. Lopt gripped his shoulder, and his thumb dug into the muscle till it hurt and then eased off to trace a quick pattern once, twice, a third time.
“Of course it’s a rock,” Hodr said. He grinned at the smith. “Must be the wine. I’m not used to it.”
“And the heat in here, hot as my forge, I tell you,” Lopt said, his eyes glowing like an ingot fresh from the flames. 
The smith’s grip on his shoulder tightened, and he leaned in. “Put your hand on my shoulder, Jarl. I’ll guide you through the crowd.”
Hodr nodded.
With Lopt beside him, Hodr entered the press of onlookers surrounding his brother. The music pounded and shrieked; Hodr’s breathed heavily, almost feeling like he needed to vomit. Lopt kept pushing him forward, through the chanting, dancing, singing crowd. They clapped and swayed with the music, laughed when a stone clattered to the ground and cheered as another thudded against Baldr’s flesh.
And then, the crowd parted. Lopt stopped walking. Before him lay open space; nothing and no one stood between himself and his brother. The stone in his right hand felt heavy, oily still, with that long grain his thumb kept tracing.
Voice clanging like a hammer on an anvil, Lopt said, “Your brother’s directly in front of you. Twelve paces away, standing on a stump. Call to him, son of Odin. Get him to turn toward you.”
Lopt’s hot hand slid from Hodr’s shoulder to his elbow. Hodr called out. “Baldr!”
Baldr turned, his bare back and shoulders gleaming. Hodr ran his thumb up and down the long grain in the oily stone. His sight dimmed, and his blood roared.
Lopt’s thumb dug into his elbow, traced a pattern and withdrew. “Say what you came to say, my friend. And then let go of all the jealousy and pain and hatred as you throw your stone. Remember, it can’t hurt him.”
“No, it can’t,” Hodr repeated.
Baldr smiled and spread his arms. Over the music, he called out, “I’m glad you’re home again, Hodr. It’s been too long, my brother.”

OUTRO
Well, folks, that was CHAPTER 87 of Kinsmen Die. I hope you enjoyed it.

The chapter ended with a bit of a cliffhanger, but it will resolve in the next chapter.

The Midwinter ritual described in this chapter … the play, so to speak, between the young woman who plays the part of Rán and Baldr, who plays the role of Aegir, is entirely my creation. It’s a riff on those two gods…Rán being the personification of the negative aspects of the sea while Aegir is the opposite…the positive, life-giving aspects.

The part where rocks are thrown at Baldr is directly from the myths, but I’ll touch on that in more detail in a later episode.

Next week we’re back with Frigg.

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. And I’d like to thank everyone who is doing so — it looks like I’m gaining new listeners which is pretty awesome.
  
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.

I have prefaced these verses again to reflect Odin’s warning. 

Bellows, Verse 87

Do not put your trust…

In a calf that is sick or a stubborn thrall,
A flattering witch or a foe new slain.

Larrington, Verse 87

Do not put your trust in…

a sick calf, an independent-minded slave,
a seer who prophesies good, a newly killed dead man


Thanks for listening.