[Main Blog Post] More Rough "All Father" Prayers

[jprussell]

I've put together four more tries at the "All Father" prayer. I'm getting closer, but still not totally happy with what I have, so even more so than usual, I welcome and ask for comments on how these might be stronger.

Thank you if you feel called to share!

Comments

[k_a_nitz]

My first attempt at Fornyrdhislag (stressed in CAPS):

ONE-eyed ALL father
In the HALL of the SLAIN,
BREWer of WELcomes
The FEWS have FOREtold,
May MUNinn ever reCALL
What HUGinn inSPIREs,
So DRAW deep from the WELL
As the RAVens CAW,
So I KEN the RUNES
And WEND my WYRD.

[jprussell]

Bravo! Thanks very much for sharing! It's very tight for as much as it evokes.

For the sake of demonstration, though, a few nitpicks if you want to strictly follow fornyrdhislag:

1) It's usually, but not always, in 8 line stanzas, and this runs for 10, so not strictly breaking rules, but slightly unusual
2) The first syllable of the second line (B1) is meant to alliterate with one of the stressed syllables of the first line (A1 or A2, or both), and the second syllable of the second line (B2) should not alliterate with the first syllable of the second line (B1), so, unless Kiwis pronounce "Hall" "'All," it wouldn't alliterate with ONE and ALL, and in line 4, FEWS and FOREtold shouldn't alliterate, since they're both in a second line (and FEWS doesn't alliterate with either BREWer or WELcomes).

Here's my attempt to rework with as few changes as I could, to show the rules strictly followed:

1 (A) (A1)ONE-eyed (A2)ALL father
2 (B) In (B1)ASgard of the (B2)SLAIN,
3 (A) (A1)BREWer of (A2)WELcomes
4 (B) The (B1)WYRDS have (B2)FOREtold,
5 (A) May (A1)MUNinn ever (A2)HOLD to
6 (B) What (B1)HUGinn in(B2)SPIREs,
7 (A) So (A1)REACH deep into the (A2)WELL
8 (B) As the (B1)RAVens (B2)CAW,
9 (A) So I (A1)WORK the (A2)RUNES
10 (B) My (B1)WYRD to (B2)KEN.

But again, I like what you posted and I'm just sharing this for anyone following along at home, and as you saw in this post, I'm not above breaking the rules for poetic effect!

Cheers,
Jeff

[k_a_nitz]

Oops, I read that as the first stressed syllable of the second line - my bad. And I obviously lost count of the lines! And I messed up rhyme with alliteration - serves me right for doing this while listening in on a work meeting!

Another attempt

[k_a_nitz]

Wender of wyrd
One-eyed all father,
Hallower of brews
In the hall of the slain,
So draw from the well for us
The depths of the runes,
And inspire me Huginn
So Muninn ever caws.

Re: Another attempt

[jprussell]

Nice! Much better than my clumsy attempt at a rework.

Re: Another attempt

[k_a_nitz]

Actually I prefer your attempt!

Re: Another attempt

[jprussell]

Well, thanks, but I think mostly that's just further evidence that there's something to poetry (and fiction, and RPGs, and visual art, and...) where there's "something" about others' creations that you can't get out of your own work.

[hearthculture]

Hi Jeff :)

I've read your new versions a few times and appreciate the time and iteration you've put in.

I want any comment I make to be prefaced with an appreciation for your undertaking and full acknowledgement that I'm pulled into your journey and just riding coattails - able to make comments from the passenger seat.

Draft 4 mirrors the christian prayer well, and I feel it has power because of that. The christian prayer doesn't just celebrate and reference God's deeds, it is a wish that his will be done here on earth. Pretty powerful magic there. I believe that the power of what your imitating lies in that intention.

I also think it's interesting that you are translating a monotheistic prayer to a polytheistic religion. Mary depended on God and was empowered by him. Though Odin is our All-Father, Idunn sustained him - they were interwoven. I wonder if there is some way to represent that within the structure of this prayer and working. Also, God covers all bases in the all father; but, though heathens have Odin as the All-Father, there are many Gods to align with to meet the same function as the christian all father. I believe that the christian our father almost serves like the opening before a SOP or LBRP, it is establishing a worldview and aligning with the will that directs that worldview. I wonder if it would be helpful to incorporate other Gods. I think the goal of the prayer is aligning yourself with the heathen Deity's will and wishing it to be done. Rather than worrying about kennings and references to his myths, I think distilling the Gods' intent and wishing it would give the power to this that you seek.

It feels like you are at the point where intuition kicks in and makes something, and then you can use your study to align it with the forms you are intending.

Just throwing out a version to give an idea of what I'm thinking, riffing off the work you've done.

All Father, who art in Fallhall,
Provident is thy wyrd,
Thy wisdom taught, thy sacrifice shared,
On earth as it is in Fallhall.
Breath into us Brokerage and Battle,
In delegation and celebration.
Let us not forget your teachings,
By Tyr may we trade self for all,
By Thor may we face fear and stand tall,
May word of our worth,
Travel far as Yggdrasil's Girth,
Our doors open to those who wander,
As if they are all you.
Forever and Ever.
And ever, Alu.

Wishing you all the best in this endeavor.

[jprussell]

Howdy!

Thanks very much for your reply, given how helpful your comments were on the Hail Idun, I've been hoping you'd share some thoughts. Thank you also for your reply on MM this week - I had to get to bed early and didn't see it until after the post had closed and so wasn't able to reply directly.

As for your comments, yes, exactly! You've well captured some of what I'm struggling with here - trying to imitate as much of the "magic" of the Catholic Rosary as I can, while still honoring and embodying a genuinely different Heathen faith, which is obviously quite hard, and you got to the heart of the matter - how polytheistic should each individual prayer be? Focusing solely on Odin as the Allfather makes "mapping" between Christian and Heathen concepts easier, but it necessarily misses out on the core premise of "but our full religious expression has other Gods too." One advantage of the "set of prayers" approach is that I don't necessarily have to get everything into one single prayer, but the hope is that the entire sequence is reasonably complete, at least for one approach. Besides the "Allfather" and the "Hail Idun," there's also the "Tree Creed" and "Mark of the Wells," and I plan to also come up with a closing prayer. Already, the "Tree Creed" is more generally calling upon all the Gods, and the closing prayer might also do so, so maybe I'll have "polytheist bases" covered there, but it's useful to think about whether it ought to be more interwoven. To try to feel this tension out, I've been bouncing back and forth between tighter and looser inspiration by/imitation of the Christian "Our Father."

So yes, I'm firmly into needing intuition to guide me, and lucky enough to have some spurs to it in the form of comments like this, so again, my deep thanks.

As for your prayer, first off, thank you! Seeing others' takes is very helpful. And this is very nice. It has a good rhythm and some rhymes, which I have not been able to make work with the alliterative framework I've mostly been trying to stick with. And of course, you bring in Tyr and Thor, which continues the masculine focus of this prayer to contrast with the feminine of the "Hail Idun," but hits on the poly part of polytheism you brought up. So, altogether, I'll definitely be mulling this over before further tries.

Thanks again, and my blessings if you'll have them,
Jeff