Full acknowledgement that the translation of Lalli's chant is almost entirely due to the generosity of the Finnish speakers in the SSSS fandom. Thank you all. And before anyone asks how you can make a throwing-spear out of whalebone, that's whale-bAne.
Chapter 6
“Listen to me, lingering spirits,
Wandering from the way of Tuoni
I adjure you gently, clearly
I request you quietly, sweetly
Far from this place fare and journey,
Wide berth leave us, long our parting.
Nameless ginnels, nameless corners,
Nameless houses know your roaming.”
Lalli, noita, long he sang them,
Then he changed his chanting's motion:
“Now in anger, now command you
Now be silent narking spirits
Lest I force you, leave you helpless
From the mage-realm main my soul-beast
Cast the bloody curse upon you
Boulders crush you back to shadows!”
So Lalli’s wrath the radio cleared
To talk freely. Tuuri skald-maid
Contact achieves with their comrades at base
Reports the quest: the people safe,
A dozen books redeemed from fire
But the rest lost in the lair-burning
Of Emil’s fight, his foe’s shending,
And the team’s escape. Skald-maid Tuuri
Is moved aside by Mikkel the cook:
Reports finding a fault in their stores –
A case of supplies has candles for food;
For the team's bellies a ballast unfit
To bring them home. The bridge is gone
To Öresund; Olsen, Danish,
Mishearing, claims the hoard-seekers
Scathed wantonly the sky-faring;
The four schemers, scotching the charge,
His help request; the high-voiced Dane,
Crannog-fort admiral, the crew ignores –
Saving his office no succour tends;
But Trond fox-wily a trick can play:
The old schemer scans his records,
Locating a ship whose captain hides
A past history that a handle gives
To the party’s need. Pivoting her track
The Icelandic ocean-farer,
Sail-flying tramp, trader sea-wain,
Túnfiskurinn turns to Denmark;
With her pride scotched, skipper Àsa,
Of blemished past, by blackmail forced,
Unwilling carrier, cases of food
Agrees to land where a lighthouse marks
An ancient dock, desolate remnant
From the doomed time of the Danish bid
To reclaim their land; a clear tryst-stead
For the hoard-seekers, hungry, waiting
For the wherry’s lade. A whale-bane gar
Aimed too loosely for Emil’s pride
Crosses the gap: two crates steering
Above the sea to the band waiting
On the landing-stead. Unlidding the first
Reveals a wealth of vegetable food;
Emil the other opens and slams
The lid hard down. Desperate he shouts
Calling the team that the case is filled
With living freight – loud and quickly
Sigrun shouts him to shoot it dead
Ere it shend the team, but unsure Emil
Calls to the rest caution to show
Whether the freke is friend or enemy
Hard is to guess, but human it seems
From his quick look. The lid slowly
Raising, reveals a red-haired lad,
Lissom, harmless, Icelandic in speech,
Asking for Bornholm. The boat has gone,
The miffed captain makes her escape,
Though Sigrun shouts at the ship’s stern
As it disappears with its debts paid
Over the horizon. Wrathful, desperate,
Norse-tongued Sigrun the new boy gives
To Emil’s care – custody the Swede
Believes is meant, though Mikkel tries
To spell the truth. Speeding inland
To the parked cat-tank, the party snatch
The far-caller the farer to name
To the mission-earls on the mer-castle
But the folk at base fob off the crew,
Promising to call the appropriate powers
To acquire help. Questions unanswered
Mikkel releases the lost redhead
From Emil’s care, casting to grasp
Why he was fixed in the food crate
Car unhandy for human freight
Over the fish-road. First courtesies:
The red-headed lad Reynir is named
Árnason born in Iceland’s realm
Of farming stock. His folk immune
Through dagrenning, his doom alone
To be at risk from the rash sickness.
Home is his haven, but his heart cankers
His haven a jail, joyless, gateless
Except for a flight unsanctioned, unblessed,
To Reykjavik and the roads seaward,
A city free to frommed traders,
Makers, chandlers, merchant sea-wains,
Outcome strangers and Iceland’s folk
Their goods exchange and gomes for hire
As hands recruit. A hoarding declares
Bornholm the port for a berthed ship –
Túnfiskurinn – today leaving
For the undaunted folk, for Denmark’s holt,
For the island realm. Reynir, ill-schooled,
To the name attaches a tale recalled
Of southward lands, sunkissed and warm,
Covered with palm trees and colour-clad blooms.
He begs for work from the boat’s owners
Gains appointment as a galley hand
Unpaid, friendless, a peon condemned
To the galley sink, his goal bungled –
For his boss warns him of the ban on crew:
By the frommed laws unfree to land
At the sun-warm docks of Denmark’s isle.
But a crisis comes; two crates unload
At a dock unkenned, a curious task,
A chore unplanned, a chance for Reynir!
So he lurks unseen in the lading bay,
Voids a freight-shell of its victual stock,
Cowers in the space where cans of tuna
Hoped for the plates of the hoard seekers,
And the rest is known. The radio folk
Come back to talk; but the base team's help
Is empty words – the errant guest
Must be cossetted, cared for and fed
Till a sea-guardian is sent to fetch
All six comrades and receive them home
In quarantine. To quit his debt
Mikkel suggests cooking the lad
For supper at need; Sigrun prefers
A handy troll bait; but the home party
Lay that the caitiff be kept alive.
