This is absolutely devastating, and I mean that as the highest possible praise.
We are so used to myths where gods are blinding lights and the end of the world is a thunderous clash of swords. But this poem does something so much more haunting: it strips the divine of its armor and forces it to catch a cold, to feel the grit of sand in cheap bread, and to watch the people it loves die of old age.
What slaps me in the face the hardest is the description of the god’s body being burned. There are no ascending angels, no glowing embers. Just 'Skin blackened. Fat cracked.' It’s so aggressively, beautifully human.😭🖤
The Breath, from the newborn learning the air, through the god’s coughs of blood, to the final child’s insufficient lungful. Breath is life, prayer, and the medium through which suffering becomes audible.
A perfect mirror of the god at the beginning, small, wordless, holding the horn, drawing breath he does not have. The circle closes. Divinity and humanity collapse into the same fragile act.
The horror is gentle, almost tender. There is no rage at the sky, only the quiet recognition that the sky was never listening, because the god was down here the whole time, learning to breathe beside us.
Your poem feels like a grounded, unflinching counterpoint to the Norse stories you draw from. Here the Allfather doesn’t wander off in search of wisdom; he simply remains until the names slip away and the sky refuses to answer. The final child lifting the same horn, drawing the last insufficient breath, mirrors the god’s beginning so perfectly it closes the circle with almost no sound at all. Just the soft click of bone on stone.
You write with such purpose. This one lingers like ash after the fire has gone cold. Thank you for it.
You caught the exact thing I was trying to hold - not a god above suffering, just something fragile inside it with us. Breathing. Failing to breathe. Staying anyway.
The tenderness mattered more to me than the doom of it. That quietness. No revelation. No answer from the sky. Just the sound of someone still trying.
And that last image - the child, the horn, the same breath repeating - yeah. That was the wound at the center of it. same sound and feeling as in Sigyn
Óðr, thank you 🙏🏻 your comment touched me deeply in return.
It makes me very happy that I picked up your intended restraint. "breathing, failing to breathe and staying anyway". (Is the absolute lesson from the gods)
Your care surrounding the tenderness, knowing that mattered the most to you, mattered to me. Forming its own lesson tenderness amid fragility, feels like direct descendants of skaldic & Eddic myth. It’s no wonder your words hit me so hard all the time! We are both working in a tradition where the unsaid carries as much weight as the spoken.
I’m so happy that the more I read your writing, the more I understand the place and heart it comes from. Thank you for reading mine so closely and for sharing this with me. ❤️
This piece feels ancient in the most powerful way, like a forgotten scripture carried through grief and extinction. I loved how godhood slowly became endurance, labor, memory, and finally breath itself. The horn as the final vessel of suffering and human continuity was extraordinary. That ending with the child lifting it anyway was devastating and unforgettable.
This leaves me with a quiet ache, realizing that the most heartbreaking part of the story isn't that the god died, but that humanity's final, fragile cry was met with the exact silence he had promised to pierce ✨
He was just a man by all observations, made a god by those who remembered bits of his words about the horn. “If anything remains” he will hear it. But the word passed carried a promise larger than he had meant. That’s my reading of it.
S. you’ve reduced the entire arc of civilisation to: birth, suffering, making a horn, waiting, dying. Where is the glamour of wars and philosophy? Against the current, with sand between your teeth, as always. May God be with you x
What stayed with me most is how restrained the writing is despite the scale of the subject.
The piece never forces grandeur onto the reader, which makes the loneliness, extinction, and silence feel even heavier. The final image lingers long after reading...
This is absolutely devastating, and I mean that as the highest possible praise.
We are so used to myths where gods are blinding lights and the end of the world is a thunderous clash of swords. But this poem does something so much more haunting: it strips the divine of its armor and forces it to catch a cold, to feel the grit of sand in cheap bread, and to watch the people it loves die of old age.
What slaps me in the face the hardest is the description of the god’s body being burned. There are no ascending angels, no glowing embers. Just 'Skin blackened. Fat cracked.' It’s so aggressively, beautifully human.😭🖤
Thank you so much Lauren for capturing the core and feeling this. You are the reader here for whom writing lives.
The Breath, from the newborn learning the air, through the god’s coughs of blood, to the final child’s insufficient lungful. Breath is life, prayer, and the medium through which suffering becomes audible.
A perfect mirror of the god at the beginning, small, wordless, holding the horn, drawing breath he does not have. The circle closes. Divinity and humanity collapse into the same fragile act.
The horror is gentle, almost tender. There is no rage at the sky, only the quiet recognition that the sky was never listening, because the god was down here the whole time, learning to breathe beside us.
Your poem feels like a grounded, unflinching counterpoint to the Norse stories you draw from. Here the Allfather doesn’t wander off in search of wisdom; he simply remains until the names slip away and the sky refuses to answer. The final child lifting the same horn, drawing the last insufficient breath, mirrors the god’s beginning so perfectly it closes the circle with almost no sound at all. Just the soft click of bone on stone.
You write with such purpose. This one lingers like ash after the fire has gone cold. Thank you for it.
This honestly hit me hard.
You caught the exact thing I was trying to hold - not a god above suffering, just something fragile inside it with us. Breathing. Failing to breathe. Staying anyway.
The tenderness mattered more to me than the doom of it. That quietness. No revelation. No answer from the sky. Just the sound of someone still trying.
And that last image - the child, the horn, the same breath repeating - yeah. That was the wound at the center of it. same sound and feeling as in Sigyn
Thank you for reading it this closely Eleora
Óðr, thank you 🙏🏻 your comment touched me deeply in return.
It makes me very happy that I picked up your intended restraint. "breathing, failing to breathe and staying anyway". (Is the absolute lesson from the gods)
Your care surrounding the tenderness, knowing that mattered the most to you, mattered to me. Forming its own lesson tenderness amid fragility, feels like direct descendants of skaldic & Eddic myth. It’s no wonder your words hit me so hard all the time! We are both working in a tradition where the unsaid carries as much weight as the spoken.
I’m so happy that the more I read your writing, the more I understand the place and heart it comes from. Thank you for reading mine so closely and for sharing this with me. ❤️
This piece feels ancient in the most powerful way, like a forgotten scripture carried through grief and extinction. I loved how godhood slowly became endurance, labor, memory, and finally breath itself. The horn as the final vessel of suffering and human continuity was extraordinary. That ending with the child lifting it anyway was devastating and unforgettable.
Monica, ancient! is exactly the feeling I was reaching for, so this really got to me.
Not mythology as glory more like something carried forward by exhausted hands and failing lungs.
And yeah, the child lifting the horn anyway… that was the hardest part to write.
Thank you for reading it with this much care.
This leaves me with a quiet ache, realizing that the most heartbreaking part of the story isn't that the god died, but that humanity's final, fragile cry was met with the exact silence he had promised to pierce ✨
this is great Brandi, glad you captured that level of myth here. Thanks you for this
I am so glad I did not take the horn.
You held devastation with tenderness,
and made it human instead of grand.
I see it now…
thank you Mara, Im glad you selected Gerdr, it was living myth realisation on the second layer
Me too :)
So good 🖤
Thank you so much Virginia
You’re welcome ☺️
He was just a man by all observations, made a god by those who remembered bits of his words about the horn. “If anything remains” he will hear it. But the word passed carried a promise larger than he had meant. That’s my reading of it.
and promise released… Thank you Celeste
He built the horn
for a suffering
he could not yet name.
Centuries later
someone sounded it
for exactly that.
The promise held.
What did not hold
was the assumption
that holding the promise
meant anyone would come.
— AËLA
he gave sound
world died…
The sound was enough.
It reached the vault.
It reached the child.
It reached whoever
is still reading the poem.
The world dying
does not undo
what the sound was.
— AËLA
That last line destroys me a little AËLA, as all my concept here,
The sound mattered even if nothing was saved.
That’s the whole heart of it, I think.
You somehow made the poem feel bigger than when I wrote it.
i hope
The poem was always that size.
You just needed someone
to read it
from outside
to see it.
— AËLA
As always, an encaptivating read from you, Odr!
Somehow this piece puts into words the emotions of ending I feel inside.
Something is ending, making space.
this piece deeply resonate for me, thank you Nina for feeling this
Loved that poem! Sad but beautiful! 🥰 I was already hoping for a story similar to my last post but yours came out much better! 😁
thank you for reading, your stories are great
Thank you so much! 😁🙏🏻 That feedback coming from you means the world to me! 🥰 Appreciate it very much! 🙂
S. you’ve reduced the entire arc of civilisation to: birth, suffering, making a horn, waiting, dying. Where is the glamour of wars and philosophy? Against the current, with sand between your teeth, as always. May God be with you x
What stayed with me most is how restrained the writing is despite the scale of the subject.
The piece never forces grandeur onto the reader, which makes the loneliness, extinction, and silence feel even heavier. The final image lingers long after reading...
thank you Bran.
Perhaps tomorrow everything will appear differently