The Myrðaling
A Ghost Story
A Ghost Story
Cold across the portal
through the shadow of the veil
the child shivers before me,
wild-walking the mirk.
She's thin as she'd never been
when she lay there, left,
tiny feet kicking in a stiff skin wrap,
taller too than when her kicking stopped
tiny feet kicking in a stiff skin wrap,
taller too than when her kicking stopped
alone in the bramble where the broken light fell
as the snow wound blue around her like smoke.
Now she can walk miles
through the night from the black
back corners of the winter that rides
before and after all things,
for she's passed the doored rock
for she's passed the doored rock
to the slaughtering shadow
that splits the soft loam, where
she blows like a seed that won't be sown
but must be milled on the stone of years
with a river of bones floating on tears.
She opens her mouth
and sings like the plague
for a name of her own to give her a grave.
Take mine I say--it's all I have
for a night sister here in the dying year,
where we've gone too far
where we've gone too far
to turn around, where too soon
we'll eat the bread of the dead,
where spirit can weigh
as heavy as flesh when the veil thins away.
we'll eat the bread of the dead,
where spirit can weigh
as heavy as flesh when the veil thins away.
Then the moon-girl came out of her pale disguise;
I saw my twin smile, and close her eyes.
~October 2014
revised and reposted October 2023 for Night of the Desperate Dead
Process notes: In Scandanavian folklore, a myrðaling, (from Old Norse, 'myrða,'
murder) or more properly, myling, was the ghost of a child killed by
its mother in infancy, usually the child of an unmarried woman, or of a
poor family unable to provide for it, abandoned in some unfrequented
place and forced to walk the earth seeking burial. The myling might
appear and reveal the acts of its killer in a song, or call out for a
name, when the hearer could save the spirit by saying "take mine' so
that it might then rest in consecrated ground, (as in this poem) or it
might vengefully possess the living, jumping on their backs and forcing
the victim to carry them to a graveyard, growing heavier with each step.
You can read more in this wikipedia article.
Image: The Strawberry Girl, 1777, by Joshua Reynolds
Public domain via wikiart.org
I have manipulated this image.
A chilling, apt and dire fable for the hallows, delved with Saxon alliterations aimed like axe-blades ("wild-walking in the mirk," "alone in the bramble where the broken light fell," "the slaughtering shadow / that splits the soft loam"). The child is our guilt, our crime, our shadow and, as the speaker confesses, twin: I wonder how many women today dream such for their aborted children or simply lost in childbirth. (Birth being the second leading cause of death.) New work is sometimes best work, but its hard to compare the perpetual shine of work like this - especially when given a fresh round of deepenings. A haunted proscenium and ditch for all of us this moony, troubled shred of the veil.
ReplyDeleteYour poem is amazing, telling a sad tale so hauntingly. Such fantastic writing. I enjoyed the notes too - the thought of all of those lost babies just being left lying somewhere is pitiful.
ReplyDelete"She opens her mouth / and sings like the plague" Oooh! Home run!
ReplyDeleteThat final stanza, before the final couplet, is like a mallet to the heart, and yet there is also the promise of some sort of release and freedom in it as well. It gives me an odd feeling, like tearing a bandage off--it hurts but satisfies too, in a weird almost disturbing way. You've caught the essence of the prompt and hold it up to the brooding moon in a mayonnaise jar, as easy as a last breath. My goodness you're good at this.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what each Asian culture might call these spirits, especially the girl babies, and if the echoes of wind thru bamboo thickets might be their calls ~
ReplyDeleteI don't know, but I know the Asian ghosts I've read about and seen in pop films and series can be some of the most frightening and non-human. Yet these communal ghosts of guilt and societal evil are never anything but a deep and vicious haunt. It's so good to se you here, M. I was thinking of you just the other day and wondering if all was well--sadly I am pretty absent myself these days from the ways of words.
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