A dréag dwelt     in dark tunnels,
Stealthily stalking     the stone ruins
Of a boiling bath     built by giants
In elden ages     outside memory,
A forsaken soldier     of a sunken empire,
Who haunted halls     for a hoard of gold,
A ghostly guardian     against reavers,
A flesh-flayer     of fools in the dark.
Déathdréam     dealt his reckoning,
Sword of the Saxon     sung in legend,
Canny Cyndraca,     killer of giants,
Warrior of Wóden,     the one-eyed king.

[Author’s Note: Alliterative verse is the poetic form used in Old English poems such as Beowulf, as well as in the Old Norse sagas and the Poetic Edda. Unlike rhyme, which is a repetition of the endings of words, alliteration repeats the beginnings of stressed syllables in accordance with complex metrical rules well known to the scops and skalds of old. There is a burgeoning movement to revive this neglected tradition, which has deeply pagan roots, and is the sole source of all that is known of Norse mythology.]

[Adam Bolivar is a poet of mythic and folkloric fantasy, a weird fiction writer and a playwright for marionettes with a particular interest in alliterative verse, balladry and “Jack” tales. The author of numerous books of poetry and fiction, he is also a marionette-maker, and has written multiple original puppet-plays which have been performed in a wide variety of peculiar venues.  https://adambolivar.com]