The Imperial Library

Song of the Askelde Men (Nord/Traditonal)

Translation 3E213

Atheneum Monks at Old Anthel

Fifty Nights from home I last awoke
upon a sky-flung cliff in Hjaalmarch Hold

Though my flesh had died and gone to ground
My Vision went on, from body unbound

Winking there in the vale whence I came
This dead man's eyes saw pale flame

Where men the same who took life away
Sung high their battle-glory and praise

Wafting went I, a shade or a wight
Through stoic pines, pitched ink of night

Ere I came upon the pyre-burning throng
I heard carried on wind's wing their song

"Sing high and clear, bandsmen born of sky
Let Sovngarde hear and join our cry"

"These honored dead shed blood upon the fen
Ending Orc and Elf and traitor men."

"Your spirit went unto and filled their heart
You sped them to glory, Hail Spirit Wulfharth"

Then oil from urns fed greedy flames
burning what few my legion and I slayed

Wordlessy they chanted then until dawn
Every flake of ash gathered ere they marched on

Swept along unseen, so too went I
Meekly haunting these Children of the Sky

Tireless they went, over hearth and hill
Exhaustion seemed only to spur them still

Unflagging they went, a whorl of rage
Soon finding our camp, bloated with prey

My dead heart ached for I knew men within
Doomed, never knowing how close was their end

Again the Nord chests swelled up in refrain
I screamed unheard. I wept with horror plain

"Hear us, our ancestor, Ash King, Ysmir
Honor this warband as we to glory repair"

"Those dead to whom you spoke and heard
We bear them upon us, Your valor conferred"

And so it was, to the man each was smeared
With ash of a Brother's bone, blood and beard

These ashen brutes, the Askelde Men
Set to a gruesome task, each bowstring bent

I bellowed then, a cry of desperate rage
A futile howl among those men, an empty page

Yet one elder turned and unblinking, stared
into the vapor-soul of me, his nostrils flared

He bellowed ancient words, his beard aflame
And my vision fell away, Peace at last came