Submission to Sigyn’s Agon

“For Sigyn”
by P.S.V.L.

In Her bowl is collected
the bile of a thousand angry Deities
the poison of a thousand fiery serpents
the tears of ten thousand lamenting women

But also
the love of a heart a thousand strong
the devotion of souls ten thousand standing
the sighs of wind and caves a hundred thousand years old

The heaviest of burdens
in hands gentle and dainty
but battle-hardened with care for her task
repeated for millennia

Let us honor Her
and the One She also honors
by Her holding of the bowl
collecting love and sorrows mingled together

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Two Submissions to Sigyn’s Agon

Remember, Sigyn’s Agon ends at 9pm EST tonight!

“She Endures”
By J.M. Gorham

Drip
Drip
Drip

~Splash~
Salty Tears
Venom Burns
Sweat Beads
Waves Ripple

Lady of Devotion
Lady of Sacrifice
Catching Venom

Drip
Drip
Drip

~Splash~
Her arms shake
His eyes meet Hers
Love washes through Her
Devotion fortified

Her muscles Stiffen
Strength flows through Her
Once again, His Hero

~Splash~
Her flesh burns
Venom biting
Her pain turns into Love

Drip
Drip
Drip

Enduring
Devotion
She Remains

*************

To the Lady of Endurance
by Amanda Artemisia Forrester

Some may find it strange
That You are named Victory Woman
When You have endured so much pain
The death of Your sons
The imprisonment of Your beloved Husband
Starvation and cold that you suffer at His side
As You hold the bowl over His head
Catching the poison as it
Drip
Drip
Drips
Into eternity
Until the final day comes
When Loki will be released
The dead rise
And the worlds will end.
But still You stay by His side,
Through the tears have long since dried on Your fair cheeks.
Those who think it strange have not endured pain and loss as we have
My small pains may not compare to Yours, sweet Lady,
But I understand that just continuing to stand tall is a Victory
When You have lost so much.
Sigyn, Mourning Mother,
May my humble prayers comfort You in Your pain.
Sigyn, Lady of Constancy,
May I have but a fraction of Your endurance
To face my own meager troubles.
Sigyn of the Cave,
Let me hold the bowl for You,
For just a few minutes.

Submission for Sigyn’s Agon

Confession
by Dr. E. Kelly

I made a mistake once
And took You for the loser girlfriend of a loser God.
You could sew my lips shut for saying so
Certainly the same thing’s been done before
And that punishment was for insulting a dwarf
Much less a Goddess

You, however, are merciful
You are mercy Herself
Seething grief and rage corrodes like venom
Dribbling, well-earned on Your husband’s forehead
Tit for tat, tit for tat, tit for tat
This is the sound the drops make as they fall

You interrupt that righteous anger of the Aesir
You interpose yourself
Lifting a bowl to catch the drops of liquid pain
You come between crime and punishment

And He can breathe
A moment’s peace

When every bond is broken and all Hel breaks loose
When He comes crazy-eyed and howling at the helm of all that was held down
I’ll be glad You spent so many thousand years at His side
Practicing compassion

Hail Sigyn

Submission to Sigyn’s Agon

SIGYN
by Fiona Y.

Enfold me again, in white feather warmth
Blossom scented Sigyn,
Delicate, as the slightest breeze
Yet with Audhumlas’ nurturing strength.
You, whose sweet song
Guides me to Ginnungapaps’ balmy heart
Where I find You dancing,
Free as a bird.
Your laughter is joyful.
You are sweetness, my goddesss
You, a young girl,
Rambling through Your garden of herbs.
You, an older girl,
Drawing the heart of the flame haired god.
You nourished me,
When I was most worn
And tho You come gently,
Sigyn, I know that Yours is a will of steel.
For Loki’s wife is strong
She has endured loss and venom and scorn.

First Submission to Sigyn’s Agon

For Sigyn
by Thomas S.

Thomas S. says: After reading your prompt for the Sigyn Agon, I sat and wrote the following in one sitting. I suppose I would describe it as imagining what it would have been like for Sigyn and Loki exiting the cavern, from Sigyn’s perspective. Please leave a note that this submission is merely a fiction dedicated to Sigyn, not a claim to any visionary experience of Her life. 🙂

================

And His chest heaves like a ship trapped against the rocks, each wave cracking the hull deeper yet. The eyes swirl in their sockets as blizzard snow, seeing not even horror now, the whites gone crimson, envenomed tears of mucus coursing down. His mouth is Ginnungagap, not screaming.

I will not speak of why We gained Our freedom, not here.

The coils of Our slaughtered Son’s bowel I sling about My shoulders, and the ropes of My filthy hair begin to drip with His blood. As My Husband twitches upon the slab of his incarceration, the serpent hisses, flickers out its tongue at Us from on high. I meet its gaze, and it yawns out fleshy fangs at Me, its Mistress’ wrath still ensorcelled into its soul. But Sigyn has a power unto Her own, and no more does She carry the weight of this thing’s spit. I hold the serpent in My vision, and wrath cannot match Me now. The serpent is still, a moment… then abandons its post, seeking the refuge of some deeper cavern.

Loki cannot stand. His body transformed, His arms and legs like wind-shook branches, He rolls from the stone and spasms, choking, groaning.

And so I lift Him, carry Him, My Husband. Because I cannot do otherwise. I leave the bowl.

Every step towards the mouth of the cave was beyond My endurance, and yet I endure. The weight of My Child’s torn gut, mantle of heartbreak, is heavier than a chain of iron. My Husband hangs scatter-limbed, crying out without words. My knees should shatter. My elbows ought to tear asunder. They do not. I should be shaking from crown to roots with ache. I ought to be screaming with the struggle of it. I do not.

Beyond the mouth of the cave, a forest. It is midnight, but Máni slowly unveils from beyond a cloud. I am washed in silver. I march down the rocky slope into the midst of pines and spruces. I lay My Husband upon the moss, where, in His fever, He whimpers as if it were a bed of jagged stone. His mad-wheeling eyes catch Máni, and for once, they halt, spell-bound by the white light.

I drop Our Son’s last remnant on the ground, and fall to My knees from relief. A sharp rock, then, to saw through the long matted locks heavy with His blood. It takes time, but I bear with it. Loki gazes at Máni, His mouth still hanging vast with Ginnungagap, silent. At last My hair is cut, and I cast the ropes upon My Son’s gut. I grab at chunks of dried dead moss, mass them with the hair and bowel. Then I stumble about Me, reaching for broken twigs and branches, piling them, slowly, slowly. The world spins around Me in the depth of My exhaustion, but I gather debris and build. Máni rides higher and higher, and as He reaches His zenith, I have built a fitting pyre, rude though it may be.

“Loki,” I whisper, My throat so dry that My voice rattles ghostly as His Daughter’s. “Can You conjure a flame?”

My Husband does not respond.

A sob gasps out, and it is a moment before I realize it is Mine. Perhaps Ginnungagap has swallowed the whole of Him, left Me only this scarecrow. I do not know. I am lost.

Máni steps out of the sky, His mighty mane of hair shining behind Him. Great strides He is taking down a stair that I cannot see, and He glows so mightily that I cannot yet see His face. He is singing, a great throbbing voice that is impossible, thunderously quiet, deafeningly gentle. Loki quakes at His advance.

“I greet You, Sigyn, and You, Loki,” the heavenly God calls. Now He is close, and His light fades–or My eyes strengthen–so that I can see the beauty of His face, somehow boy and youth and aged man, all ages of life there. He smiles. He is in tears. His tears turn to moonstones as they hit the earth. He advances, until His feet are on the earth beside Us.

“And I you, Máni,” I manage through My parched mouth. I cannot muster fine words now. “We are free.”

“Your Husband’s soul is wandering the Void.” Another moonstone forms upon the moss. “He drifts on the waters of oblivion. It is a relief from His madness.”

“How shall We call him back?” Something in Me holds back against a black howl of despair. I will not collapse into the lethargy of fatalism. I cannot endure it, and yet I endure.

“Sing with Me.”

Our voices rise, His deep and ancient, pulling on the world with all the strength of tide, Mine keening and broken, piercing even into Ginnungagap. We weave together, wife’s love and stranger’s compassion, twirling, skirling, calling, falling, flying, sighing. Yes, We sing. The trees’ souls shiver and weep, and, without the touch of wind, their branches sway and churn.

Loki twitches. He blinks, staring at Máni still. His eyes flick towards Me. Then to the pile of Our Son’s desecrated gut. Then to the forest around us. He sucks a breath deeper than a bellows.

His scream cracks through My soul like the thrust of a sword, and Máni presses a shining hand to His eyes, weeping silently.

Loki jerks upright, panting, gasping. His skin roils and twitches, incipient with mutation, His shapeshifter power rising. His eyes bulge and the pupils turn to slits, fangs jut from his jaw–

Máni puts a hand upon Loki’s cheek. “You know Me, Loki,” He murmurs, gazing into the tiger eyes. He leans in, fearless, and kisses the Mad-God on the lips.

Loki sits motionless as a statue.

Máni turns to Me and nods. “Yours is the power, Blessed One,” He says to Me. Then He steps into the sky. “I am missed from My post. I must return. I wish You both joy.” He walks heavenwards, His song slowly fading, His form reassuming the nature of a sphere.

How I have the strength to dance now will ever be a Mystery. But now I leap into motion about My Husband, My limbs shaking off the weight of accursed subterranean ages, as He gazes at me in still and silent wonder. I call to the pyre, and the spirit of Fire moves through Me, sparks dancing down My arms and legs, leaping into the moss and branches. Smoke begins to unfurl. Warmth awakens.

“You know this dance!” I cry in My ragged voice to Loki, and something almost like a smile steals across that wasted visage.

The trees’ souls cry out to Me in ecstasy. I begin to move through forms of Myself. A girl is before Loki, still crowned in flowers. His newly-wed is here, Her locks braided and tied into a golden crown upon her brow. I am a mother, with tears of joy in My eyes. I am the Bowl-Bearer, face in unbreakable resolve. I am an aged woman as yet unreached. I dance through a witch’s hame, a warrioress’, a queen’s. I manifest forms as mortals cannot comprehend.

Now He leaps to His feet, reels, lurches, but I dance about Him, My hands at His waist, holding Him steady. A curious, blood-chilling laugh sounds from His mouth, but it is Loki, and the Void does not silent-roar from between his teeth.

The fire rises, consuming the defilement of My poor Narvi, releasing that desecration into the purity of smoke and cinder. His holy blood is released, as well, My hair burning but the smell somehow not bitter, instead sweet as juniper incense. Loki begins to dance with Me, around Me. He laughs again, louder, and the trees shout to Him. He roars and He kisses Me fiercely. He sobs and weeps and moans and laughs yet again. I wrap My arms about Him in a close embrace, hold Him again. He howls in adoration.

“Will you help Him?” I cry to the trees.

Their assent comes in a susurrus of shivering limbs. They consent to the offering.
Loki explodes into the nature of Fire. Trees burst as He seethes outwards in all directions, wrapping tongue-limbs around the trees and boiling their sap. He sucks the life out of them. Their bark incandesces into red-hot coals, their limbs into a crackling wave of fire. He races in every direction, sucking the forest into His famished form, and bathing My body in blissful warmth.

When Sunna rises, the earth smokes. We are surrounded by the barest black husks of the sacrifices. Loki’s limbs are full and strong, His eyes steady and clear. His hair flows down in a beautiful mane of red and gold. My own is washed clean, My skin luminous and flushed from My Husband’s touch.

And We stand bright and strong, raising Our hands in grim salute to Sunna, in blessed thanks to Máni as He disappears below the horizon.

We walk in freedom, all the worlds before Us.

For Sigyn

This isn’t a submission for Sigyn’s Agon. I don’t submit pieces for consideration to my own Agons! This is, however, something to get the ball rolling. Her agon runs through January 31, 9pm EST.

 Five for Sigyn

We praise You, Lady of Constancy, Whose heart never wavers in Her devotion.
We praise You, Victory Woman, Whose strength is that of unending endurance.
We praise You, North Star, Whose virtue will never be diminished.
We praise You, Wife of Loki, beloved Jewel of His hall, cherished beyond measure.
We praise You, Incantation Fetter, Whose touch brings healing and liberation.
We praise You, Mother of Two clever Sons, loss and glory and love everlasting.

Oh, Lady Strong as the Mountain!
Oh, Love Longer Lasting than the Stars!
Oh, Sweet and Ferocious Devotion!
Oh, Never-swerving Power!
Oh, Heart of Loki’s Hall!

Ever and always shall You be praised, Sigyn.

 

(by G. Krasskova)

Shrine pictures

After running about making various offerings to Hermes, I spent the rest of the morning redoing my Hermes shrine, and my Loki and Sigyn shrine. 

Hermes’ place. ^

Loki and Sigyn’s place.^

The icon above is by Grace Palmer, and belonged to my mom Fuensanta.