Jólnir

A Rauhnächte Reading in collaboration with Ashmore Transmissions

I have always found Norse mythology fascinating. What other culture believed in gods that would one day die? Odin, in particular, intrigues me, with his many, many names and his oh-so-human curiosity and desire for knowledge. As the All-Father, he features in my current WIP, which I’m considering serialising on here sometime in 2026. So, when Aurelian Ashmore asked me if I was interested in writing something for his Rauhnächte Readings on Ashmore Transmissions, I was not only honoured, but I knew instantly who I wanted to write about.

Once, the winter nights were mine.

In the north of the world,

Where the wind blew straight from Jötunheimr,

The children of ash and elm knew all my names.

All halls were mine in the long dark,

All feasts were laid out for me.

The mead flowed and the meat was rich,

And the people raised their cups to me:

Master of the undead, the gallows and the spear,

The battle-wolf, the raven-god, the Lord of the Aesir.

My people cut down great trees in the forest.

For many days and nights, they fed them to the fires.

The flames consumed the logs

Like Fenrir devouring the sun—slow and inevitable.

I watched it all.

The words of their galdrar were music to my ears,

The blood of their blóts sweet and sticky on my tongue.

In sacred groves, where the air smelled of pine and iron,

Corpses swung in the bitter winter wind:

Beasts and men, sacrificed and strung up for me.

I breathed it in, the scent of death, and I was strong.

I visited their homes in the guise of Old Man Winter,

But they knew me—the one-eyed god.

How could they not?

They feared me and longed for me.

In the sunless days, the darkness holds sway,

And I knew the dark.

Was I not the blind guest, the hooded one, the barrow-lord?

Only I had the strength and will to throw wide the doors of Hel’s hall

And let the shades of the dead pass back through the veil

For one unholy night.

On that day of endless dark, I rode through the skies,

Sleipnir beneath me, the Wild Hunt behind me,

And all the world below me: the harvester of souls.

Great bonfires burned in the dark to light my way,

And I drank in fear and wonder as I passed overhead.

Who now does my work? Who now leads the hunt?

There is no one like me—no deity with such duality:

God of victory and defeat, deceiver and deliverer,

All-Father, twice-blind, a god that can be killed.

I used to rule the dark—now I am a part of it,

A shadow among shadows, far outside the circle of firelight.

My hunting horn has been drowned out by the tolling of bells.

The sacred groves stand empty, my halls are gone,

And my people worship different gods and sing different songs.

I was always more human than divine—

A flawed god, forever hungry

For knowledge, for devotion, for mortal souls.

I am hungry still, but I cannot feast.

Parched, but I cannot drink a single drop.

Once I believed I would be struck down in battle by Fenrir,

Mightiest of beasts,

And I was glad.

It would have been a worthy end for me:

War-father, attacker, god of the slain.

But I have only faded, becoming as insubstantial as smoke.

No longer a god,

Not even a memory—

Only the greatest and least of things: a story.

Happy New Year to all!

Let us never forget the power of stories, or our ability to change our own.