An unexpected story.

Dear Reader,

I'm a story teller by trade. It's part of what I do and part of my magical lineage. The night of Moura Eve, I was awakened with the feeling of someone sitting and watching me. I sat up somewhat disturbed by this sensation. That was when I saw Ganesha sitting on a lotus throne. He held his head on one of his left hands (Lord Ganesha had four arms in this vision) and where the blood sprang from his severed neck, lilies grew. He then set his head upon his neck and told me the following story.

The First Winter of Alfheim

It was time for the third harvest. The wheat and barley was green in the field, withering from the roots up. The fruit in the trees did not ripen fully. Famine was upon the land for the fruits of the first and second harvest had been consumed for want of the fruit of the third. Such was the quantity of death in Alfheim that Hel herself came from Helheim to collect them.

Freyr and Gerða entertained Hel at their hall, as befitting a visiting ruler. Solemn Hel ate no bread, had no meat, nor drank any wine or mead. She merely sat at their table engaged in conversation in the evening after spending her day gathering her dead from the people and beasts down to the last blade of grass and withered leaf of the day. Freyr asked Hel what they might do to appease her desire for his people.

She answered that the greatest among them should give up their greatest treasure for a season. Many came to appeal, bringing treasures and wonders in great quantity such that would ransom a king. Hel turned them away, saying that was not what she had come for. Freyr went to his mother, Nerthus to hold council and learn what the wise Queen of Vanaheim would do. As he laid eyes on his mother, sudden knowledge came to him. Nerthus looked on him and asked if he knew what he must do. He looked to Gerða and the certainty of the solution settled into his breast. He asked his mother for help.

They went to Alfheim. They went to a barley field where the plants were green yet withering from the roots. Nerthus embraced her noble son tenderly. She then cut his wrist with a sickle for gathering herbs. Freyr laughed at the sharpness of the cut as he sat in Gerða's arms. As his blood flowed into a bowl, a few drops fell out into the field to grow up as poppies. Cornflowers grew where Gerða's tears fell for her beloved's sacrifice. Hel witnessed the rite with a solemn nod of approval.

Freyr was attired in kingly garb and laid within a strong barrow with all the goods he would need on his journey to Helheim. As this was done, Gerða began to bleed and she lost the child she carried before it had limbs and form in the womb. As the mingled life essence of mother and child fell to the parched earth, they became water. As Freyr's life essence was sprinkled over the fields, rain began to fall.

The skies grew black and the rain was cold. This was a sign of things to come. It was not long after Freyr arrived at Helheim that winter came to Alfheim for the first time. Gerða guided them through that hard season. There was a good queen.