The Jotun

by Cooper Heilmann, staff writer

The chill was there that day
Just as it ever was. It had been there yesterday and the day before that
For the past month.  It wasn’t just winter in the usually-peaceful
Village of Vinterhavn.
The snow had engulfed the huts in its cold arms.
The well had frozen, and people huddled inside their houses,
Warm bodies against the chill. The candles were out.
The Norsemen were used to such cold; Winter was harsh.
But they had seen nothing like this before.

There was rumor that a terrible beast lived halfway up the mountain
To the north of Vinterhavn. The word was uttered often
A frightened whisper in a dark place
Between the lips of the frightened villagers: Jotun*.
This, they thought, was the reason for the shroud of winter
Over the village.
Cows had gone missing, and occasionally even children,
But no one dared to find the Jotun’s lair.

When no one had hope, they turned to the village chief Hrothgar.
He had five sons.  The oldest was Olaf, who was strong
And a mighty warrior in the minds of the villagers.
Hrothgar, who would flee before a lamb,
Sent out his oldest son to find the Jotun’s lair.
People waited anxiously for news of his return...
Whispering minds, no, it must be the cold wind...
But none came.
The people of Vinterhavn waited for three days,
And it was as if a dead silence
Had passed through the village. Finally Olaf was seen,
But he was fleeing in fright. He had abandoned
His people. The chill still hung in the air.

The villagers, furious at this betrayal turned to Hrothgar
Once again.

And so Hrothgar turned to his next son,
Sven.
He was a very strong man as well, and he bragged about
How he would take down the Jotun.
But no news came from him either. Three days, three days
Later, his body was found under a sheet of ice in a pond;
He had no wounds.
The villagers again turned to the chief Hrothgar, whose tears
Turned to ice as they slid down the crevices of his weary face.
Hrothgar kept wondering
How he could have met his end, a man so cunning and brave?
The cold lingered.

So Hrothgar again turned to his next son Leif.
Leif set out to kill the Jotun, but he was never seen again.
Once again Hrothgar mourned the death of his son,
Who had been so strong and brave. The villagers were weeping as well.
They wept not in sorrow
But in hopelessness. The Cold still would not leave.

Hrothgar, in a final attempt, sent out his fourth son Niels
Who was always very charming and handsome,
Blessed by Freja
He was.
Yet he too was vain and he never returned again.
He was dashing into the winter mist, Winter biting
At his heels and his cheeks,
After his brother Olaf.
Hope was gone. However, Hrothgar
Had a fifth son; never spoken of,
Never thought of.
Yet while his brothers held their fists aimed to Valhalla and failed,
Eric had been strengthening his arm, and his spirit.
For years he had been overcast by man-shaped shadows
But Eric didn’t mind. He knew his time had come.

One day, Eric told the village that he would slay the Jotun.
Some laughed, but some looked hopefully up to him.  Perhaps the
Aesirs** would help them this time.
The next day, Eric prepared to find the Jotun’s lair. His father,
As a final goodbye gift offered him his sword,
But he declined. It was tainted with cowardice.
He took up a sword he had crafted himself,
And left the village of Vinterhavn behind him
Without a word.

He climbed up the mountain as the chill grew colder,
Winter grew nearer,
And began to creep up through his bones like little spiders
With legs of snowflakes.
He soon found the cave of the Jotun, buried deep
Into the side of the mountain.
He called into the cave,
Oh Jotun, du som har vondt mitt folk så kom
Og utfordrer meg, barn av vinteren!
And with a terrible roar like shattering ice, the Child of Winter,
The Jotun, nine feet tall and breathing frost,
Stormed out of the cave wielding his axe of ice
And bellowing curses in a language unknown to man.

The Aesirs looked down from their golden palace.
They took their eyes off the world and saw him
With humble beginnings, taking up a sword and fighting
For his people.  The All-Father*** said to his mightiest son, Here.
Here is a true hero.
And so Thor gave him strength behind his arms
As he swung his sword with a shout of triumph.
The roar could be heard for miles.
And the villagers cheered in victory.  The frost
Lifted from the village. The wells thawed,
The cows slept soundly, and the flames in the souls
and hearts of the Villagers blazed
Once again.
Vinterhavn was saved.

But Eric’s story was different.

He was lifted from the blur
Of the snow and the glory
Of the peak.
And he was soon greeted
With many hearty congratulations.
Midgard^ needs more warriors like you, they said.
He was sure he would be remembered.
Eric remembered his brothers,
And wished they could have followed him.
But they didn’t. Maybe someday.
As the flames of the torches and the
Reflection of the Golden Hall bounced around
In his eyes, he lay back in peace.





*A Jotun is a mythological Norse monster similar to trolls from folklore.
**The Aesirs were a race of gods that ruled Valhalla, the Norse version of Heaven, where all warriors who died in battle go.  The commonly known Aesirs include Odin, Thor, and Loki.
***Odin, the Norse god of wisdom, who gave life to mankind and many other creatures and races, hence the name “All-Father”.
^Midgard is the world of mortal men.

Letter to the Editor

Note: This is in response to Cooper Heilmann's short story "The Old Guitarist." 

I loved your story this morning!  It brought tears to my eyes as my husband used to play classical guitar but has Parkinson's now and can't play but he loved the guitar and said that when you play it, the vibrations from it makes you forget everything.  I could just envision him being that person.  I will share your story with him.  Thank you!  

Diane Klaiber

The Old Guitarist

By Cooper Heilmann, staff reporter

The old house by the strawberry gardens had its windows open.  It used to be a beautiful house with brick walkways and gardens. But long had it been overgrown with ivy,  long had it been forgotten.  The house was dead.  The gardens no longer flowered, smoke no longer rose from the chimney.  Yet there was life in it still.  From within, one could faintly make out the sound of song drifting out the broken windows.  It was a sweet, sad song, an old song.  Inside the house, an old man sat in a musty green lounge chair in front of a dead fire whose ashes had blown and scattered across the living room floor.  The old man plucked the strings of an acoustic guitar.  The strings had not been replaced in years, yet the guitar still played like no other.  The old guitarist was bent over his instrument from years of doing nothing else but sitting and playing.  His cracked voice hummed along with the song, an old song that had long lost its name and meaning.  But this old man brought new life into it.  This song was the last strand of his life, yet it played of the past and the present.  There was no use for playing and singing of the future.
The old man was so caught up in his song that he barely even noticed the young boy who was trying to sneak closer to hear the song.  His feet became entangled in the vines that entwined the brick and he  stumbled, narrowly avoiding a fall on the broken glass outside the window. He crept to the windowsill and was immediately fascinated by the sight.  The man had a bony figure and white, wispy hair that was once long and luscious.  However, his eyes were crystal clear and as blue as the sky.  The man played and played.  The old man looked so lonely, and the boy wanted to cry out to him, to give him company, but he could not bring himself to do so.  The boy did not know how long he stood there, listening.  
Gradually, his music slowed down, becoming softer and softer.  He ended on a note that was both low and high, plucking the top and bottom strings open.  He looked up from his instrument and stared the little boy straight in the eye.  The boy gasped.  He had thought he was hidden.  But the old man smiled weakly and laid his head back with a sigh.  He died there with his guitar in his arms.
    The boy never forgot that moment of his life.  The sad song inspired him, and the old, yet piercing blue eyes haunted him forever.

The Black Dog

by Cooper Heilmann, staff writer

All my life it has followed me,
That dark, black shadow of a dog.
I’ve seen it
When I was seven,
then nine,
then ten and twelve,
and then again just today.
I’ve seen it
At the beach before it rains,
In the cemetery at dusk,
In the darkness of that pine forest,
In the empty house I left behind,
And in the faces of my friends gone by.

When I was little I believed it existed,
but then again, anyone would.
When you look back on your childhood years,
You think, “oh, how foolish I was,” and
“oh I remember that!” and
“It doesn’t actually exist”.
But it turns out I was right those years that passed,
When I was seven,
Nine,
Ten,
Twelve.
When I saw it
In the forest,
Alone at night,
As it disappeared over the hill,
And at the beach before the storm.
Now finally I stare it straight in the eyes;
Those cold, dark, beady eyes.
I stare it down as if it was an old friend,
Or an old enemy.
I stare into those dark, cold beady eyes that finally bring
The death of me.

Head of the Dragon: Part III

by Cooper Heilmann, staff writer


Link to Part II: http://sturgisstormwatch.blogspot.com/2012/03/head-of-dragon-part-ii.html

Eric walked down the path to the smithy, where he worked with Asvald, the village blacksmith.  It was a dark day, and the clouds hung low in the sky.  Smoke rose from the chimneys of the huts.  It was an unusually cold day, so Eric wore furs and leather to keep warm.  Odin’s totem stood in the center of the village square.  It was a carved pole of wood that depicted Odin wearing a deer skull mask and two ravens on his shoulders.  In times of need, the village would gather around it and ask Odin for the wisdom to fix their problem.
The steady ringing of steel resonated from the blacksmith’s shop as always.  The past few days seemed to have gone by very slowly.  Eric couldn’t wait for his sixteenth birthday.  It was then that he would receive his first weapon.  Eric had practiced with many swords before, and he was a fine sword fighter.  However, he wasn’t as skilled as he would have liked—not as good as his father.  He loved nothing more than to listen to all the tales of heroes that slew frost giants in the north, or blessed by Thor, the god of thunder and war.  One of his favorite stories was Beowulf and Grendel.  When he was little, he always wanted to be Beowulf.  He would spend hours pretending to be strong heroes that would vanquish monsters with their bare hands.
 Eric knocked on the door of the blacksmith once, but there was no answer.  He just stepped in.
Asvald was hammering an axe into shape when Eric came in.  He looked up from his work and greeted him.
“Eric, how good of you to come.  Are you ready to get started?” Asvald asked.
“Sure,” Eric replied.
“That’s my boy!” Asvald said.  “Get those young muscles of yours pumping!”  He went about his daily job of pumping the bellows and refueling the fire.
Eric finished his work late.  The moon was shrouded by the clouds, and the lights were out inside the houses.  He was about to head back home when he heard something behind him.  He froze in his tracks and slowly turned around.  There, crouching behind him was the dark shape of a wolf.  It’s ragged silver fur glistened in the moonlight and its amber yellow eyes glared at him.  Eric looked around for something to fend it off with.  He had dealt with wolves before and he knew how dangerous they were.  They used to kill the village’s sheep and chickens.  However, this one seemed angry.  Its eyes were hungry for him.
The door of the smithy was only a few paces away.  If he moved, the wolf could pounce.  He was about to wait it out when the wolf suddenly dashed towards him.  He only just had time to doge the beast as it leaped at him.  He stumbled and backed up to the smithy door.  The wolf rolled over and charged him again.  Eric grabbed the torch by the door and threw it at the wolf.  He hit his target, but the wolf shrugged it off.  It leaped straight at him.  He rolled out of the way and picked up the nearest object: a hammer.
    Eric brandished the hammer and waved it in the air, trying to scare the wolf away.  Just then, another wolf appeared behind him.  The first wolf leaped at him.  Eric’s hammer struck the wolf and the the beast hit the wall of the smithy.  The second one tackled him to the ground, and he kicked it off him.  It charged him again, and he spun around and hit it in the shoulder.  The wolf collapsed on the ground with a whimper.  Eric ran for his house, the hammer still in his hand.  He could hear the howls of more wolves coming for him.  He knew he was in trouble.
Three wolves were behind him, sprinting after him at an incredible speed.  Eric ran as fast as his powerful legs could carry him.  He started yelling, trying to spread the alarm.  The wolves were almost upon him, and he knew no one would help him now.  A sudden surge of bravery hit him.  He stopped in his tracks and swerved around.  Just as a wolf leaped at him, he swiped it out of the air with the hammer.  It flew sideways into the wall of a hut and rolled on the ground, whimpering.  The other two wolves kept coming.
Eric ran to the nearest hut and ran up the wall.  He grabbed the thatch roof and hoisted himself up just before the wolf’s jaws snapped shut by his heel.  The wolves jumped and snapped at him while he regained his breath.  He looked around him.  He could see more wolves running into the village from the forest.  All of a sudden, they stopped and backed up.  They ran at the wall as if trying to scale it.  Eric panicked for a second, but his battle instincts took over.
He ran and jumped off the roof of the hut, his hammer raised above his head.  He yelled a war cry and smashed down on a running wolf.  He stood up to face the other wolf, but it backed away in fear.  Behind him, he could see half a dozen warriors from the village emerge from the huts with torches and swords.  A dead wolf lay at his uncle Bjorn’s foot.  The last wolf retreated, and was joined by three more.  Eric stood, breathing heavily, and watched them dash back into the darkness of the forest.

Head of the Dragon: Part II

by Cooper Heilmann, staff writer

Link to Part I: http://sturgisstormwatch.blogspot.com/2012/03/head-of-dragon-part-i.html 

The frozen grass crunched under the feet of a young boy.  The early morning sun cast its waking gaze over the twinkling grass.  The boy plodded up the hill, enjoying the warmth of the sun from the east.  When he reached the top of the hill, he was standing on the edge of a sea cliff.  To his right was the fjord that led to the docks of his village.  To the left, the untamed coast stretched south for miles.
Eric always loved to come here.  He was fifteen years old, and he stood tall and proud.  He was rather muscular for his age.  He had matted blond hair and piercing blue eyes, like the half-melted ice in the later spring months.  His thick eyebrows rested on his low forehead.  Some people said that he didn’t look at all like his father.
Eric tried not to think about his father, Hrothgar.  He had been lost at sea when Eric was only eight years old.  Other ships had returned from his father’s expedition, but every time Eric asked them what had happened, they said his ship had been caught on an iceberg.  They seemed to shun the question whenever it was asked.  When they did talk about Hrothgar, they did so in hushed voices.  Ever since the day he had awaited Hrothgar’s return on the docks, Eric had come up to this point.  Every morning, he watched the sea, as if his father’s ship would appear.
Deep inside, Eric didn’t believe that his father had hit an iceburg.  Hrothgar was the finest warrior for miles around.  He had wrestled a bear naked, driven out an enemy Viking village, and swam from the pier to the docks in the middle of winter.  He was also an excellent sailor.  Hrothgar was appointed the leader of a raid on some villages far up the north coast.  He never returned.  Eric sighed and walked back to his village.  On the way there, he met his uncle Bjorn.
“Oh hello, Eric,” he said.  “Up early again, eh?”  Eric nodded.  “I see.  By the way, the blacksmith wants you there early today, so I suggest you get going,” Bjorn said.  
“Okay, goodbye uncle,” Eric said.  He headed down the slope.
Eric’s village was at the mouth of a fjord leading into the North Sea.  On land, it was surrounded on three sides by a dense forest that the villagers called “Wolfwood”.  To the south, the faint ghost of a road wound down a cliff and disappeared into the hills.  No one ever left Eric’s village except to hunt or cut wood.  They had set up a permanent, though small, residence.
Eric worked as the blacksmith’s assistant.  He enjoyed the job.  It was hard work, but it was worth it.  He pumped the furnace and watched the flames melt and twist the hot iron into weapons and other items.  Then the blacksmith would bend and hammer, bend and hammer until the iron changed shape into tools ranging from horseshoes to swords.
As always, smoke billowed in a thick black cloud from the small building ahead of him.  Eric walked in the door and began his work.  The forge rang with the sound of strong hammers on steel, like the song of the Valkyries when the Aurora Borealis lit up the sky.

Head of the Dragon: Part I

by Cooper Heilmann, staff writer


The little boy stood on the docks, waiting.  Waiting for the head of the dragon.  The waves splashed against the frozen shores and rocked the moored karfi and other boats.  Mist spread out across the fjord, reaching halfway up the steep, rocky cliffs.  Smoke from thatched roof houses rose into the air above one of the cliffs.  This was where young Eric’s village lay.
His mother stood next to him, holding his shoulder.  They waited and waited like all the others on that shore.  The longboats and karfi should have been coming by now.  The sun hung low in the gray sky.  Eric looked up to his mother.  She just stared blankly out into the open ocean, waiting as he was.  Eric’s uncle, Bjorn, walked over and stood next to them.  He towered up about six feet and three inches tall, and he was built like a bear.  He stood there, hand in his thick, blond beard, waiting.
Just then, a shape could be made out approaching the fjord.  It was a ship.  The sails were being rolled up.  People—tall, strong people were running about on the deck.  On the prow of the boat stood the figure of a mermaid.  The ship beached ashore, and the people cheered as the men jumped out of the ship.  Each held treasure of some kind.  It ranged from rice, salt, and meat to gold, jewels, and weapons.  Each man had an axe at his belt and a heavy wooden shield on his back.  They held horned helmets in their arms.  They walked victoriously onto the shore.  One walked right past Eric as if he wasn’t there.  Eric’s uncle ran up to the man.
“Sven!  Sven!  Do you know the tidings of my brother?”  The man shook his head.
“Thought ‘e was ‘ere,” he replied, and walked off.  Ship after ship came into the harbor, but none of them belonged to Eric’s father, Hrothgar. The sun soon set over the ocean, and Bjorn and Eric’s mother turned away and headed back to the village.  Eric stared out at the open ocean, and a small tear ran down his cheek.  He stood there for a while, before trudging through the snow back to the village. Eric was only eight years old.


To be continued...

Storm

by Cooper Heilmann, staff writer

The wind blows hard against the sail,

The water lashes against the dragon’s head,
Thunder slams and booms and wails,
The men sail on ahead.

The oars splash against the water,
The ropes pull and twist and grind,
The men do not seem to bother,
They leave the far western shore behind.

The ship moves on through the storm,
The brave captain bellowing orders,
The gale pushes and fights and roars,
The men live with the salty odors.

The ship pushes on and on and on,
As the sail rips and the oars grind,
The men fight on and on and on,
With only one place in mind;

Home.