**Marriage of Skaði of the Snow-Paths**

Marriage of Skaði of the Snow-Paths

Silent fell the snow on shadowed peaks,
steel-blue sky over stone-strewn ridges.
Upon them strode Skaði, winter-born daughter,
giant’s kin with vengeful courage,
bow of yew on her young shoulder,
wolf-fur wound round winter-hewed limbs.

Thrymheim thundered with each footstep,
home of her father, the strong one fallen.
Thiazi lay low by trickster’s deceit,
eagle-soul ended by Æsir’s flame.
Grief grew grim in the glacier-heart,
vengeance vowed on halls of Asgard.

Death knells rang, roads dark with ice,
she skied swift to the shimmering stronghold.
Helms glinted on high hall-walls;
spears stood stiff as storm-worn trees.
With an arrow-point voice, Skadi spoke:
“Blood for blood, or bonds be broken.”

Gathered gods, gray-bearded, golden,
Odin one-eye, oath-wise ruler,
Loki laughing with limerick lies,
Njord of seas and shore-ridden calm.
Weighing her wrath with wary words,
woven peace from peril with promised presents.

Justice judged by jest and chance:
she should select a spouse from similar feet,
no face featured, no form found.
Bright were the boots on the broad hall floor;
she sought strength and speed, soft and fair,
but took the toes of tide-born Njord.

Let laughter loosen the leaden air,
to soften Skaði’s stone-locked sorrow.
Loki labored with ludicrous art,
tied a goat goatee to a god’s own girthed-loins;
pain met play in pulled-tight plait,
till tears of mirth traced Skaði’s face.

Peace was paid with a place in the stars:
Thiazi’s eyes to the upper dark,
set as stars in the stark night-sky,
watching winter and wandering kin.

Yet marriage marched on mismatched roads.
She loved the long hush of high cold halls,
longing for the wolf’s howl and the hoar-frost’s song;
Njord yearned for his narrow beaches,
gull-cry gladness and watery waves.
Nine nights north, nine nights near surf—
each half-living, hearts divided.

At last they parted, paths unbound.
Skaði skied to the sky-close summits,
siren of skiing and sudden snowstorms,
hunter of elk in endless white.
She strides still where the storm-winds speak,
sharp as ice and steadfast as stone.

So sing her name in the north’s long night:
Skaði, shield-maid of shattered peaks and hearts,
who chose her fate with frost-bit will,
and wears the wild as her wedding-ring.