Who are you? I am curious to know … I’ve only just seen your name this night, the name that means Glow, as though you are a light which illuminates the shadows which play upon the wall.

From where have you come and what have you brought? What is it that your hands have wrought? What is it that your eyes have seen; your ears have heard?

What was your mother’s name and from where did she come? Was it Grímr? Was she, as you, a daughter of Jotunheim, fair and strong? How had she born you and how had her mother born her? What of your father — did you know his name, and did he give you yours? Or was it your mother, or your mother’s mother who rang poetry into your soul?

Does your tongue know these truths at which we wonder, like children gazing at dragons in the stars: what are His many names? Are your husband and hers so truly the same? Is His name Hálogi? Is it Logi? Is it Loki? Are they one and the same? Is his hair the color of the fire for which you’ve named your daughters, and were his features fair and fine? Were you his wife, his Queen? Were you the goddess he bent and buckled to? Were you left behind?

Where did you tremble in the snow, and did you make it melt? Did your stomach topple giddily as he laid His hands upon you? Did the sweat of your skin melt the snow? Did it burn away into steam coiling ‘round your fingertips as your lips parted and gasped? Did you welcome His weight when you were thrown upon the earth, a writhing riling beast whose hair did rim her porcelain features which snarled like wolves at the kill? How did you howl as your fiery passions turned rock molten beneath your thighs and how did you moan so that the mountains trembled? How did you consume Him whole upon the stone, and how did you know Him then?

How strong are the hands which pulled forth Embers and Ashes forth from this womb? Was it a fiery birth? How worked your tongue at your lips and teeth to form their names: Einmyria and Eisa, those wild daughters of whom you conceived where the stones burned bright and sweat traced languid trails down your spine .…

What was it like to become a mother, to smile sweetly as your daughters’ lips blistered your nipples? Did your love heal the burns as their fingers curled into your hair? How bloody would you fight for them? How would you rage to lift them on high? How many men would you slay to pave their way?

Did your children grow wild and bold and was their hair as fiery as their father’s? Did their curls frame their smooth and pale cheeks, and did their eyes look out blue and green across the icy tundra? Did their smiles fetch the hearts of men? Were you unable to hold them, unable to keep them tamed?

Were you, yourself, regretful of being tamed?

Or had you never been as such?

Did your eyes watch Him walk across the frozen plane and did your tears freeze on your cheeks? Did the wind nip at the nape of your neck as you pulled your fur lined cloak close and did your daughters not come to witness their father’s departing? Did he wander far and wide to take more wives and lovers — did the world shake beneath his feet?

Or did you, daughter of warriors and niece of kings, burry him in the ice as Queens are wont to do? Did you weep alone where your King lay cold in the ground when your daughters were whisked silently into the night? Did your spirit follow them as they bore to their thieves sons who would be kings? Did you see them loved or did you see them bruised? Did your heart break or did it melt?

Had you been a breath on the western wind and had your name drifted in the corners of the castles of kings? Where once you had been the fire which trembled the Earth, had you become frost in the stone? Did you, too, lie quiet in the tomb?

How is your name, My Lady Of Whom I’ve Never Heard? Is it Glut, as they whispered among themselves, as I overheard? Is it Glöd for the gladness you had in love? Or is it Glód, for the kingdoms your burned?

My Lady Of Whom I’ve Never Heard, are you forgotten?

Or are you remembered?

[Tahni is beginning to lose track of how long she has been a practicing pagan, but she believes that it’s been somewhere around eight years. She recently became a devotee of Loki, but continues to work with deities and spirits from many pantheons. She often honors the deities and spirits she works with by telling stories for and about them in her art and writing. Some of her work has been featured in Huginn and Lilith: Queen of the Desert with an upcoming credit in Unto Herself: A Devotional Anthology for Independent Goddesses. She often shares snippets of writing at tahnijnikitins.deviantart.com.]