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THE HAWK THAT FOUGHT
THE WIND
All the worlds, including our own,
rest in the branches of the world-tree, Yggdrasil.
A very old Jotun named Hræsvelgr, or Corpse-Gulper,
sits at the top of the world-tree in the form of an eagle, and
the flapping of his tremendous wings cause all the winds that
blow across the land and seas of our world, Midgard. When our
world was young, Corpse-Gulper was already old. There were
bare-patches on his body where his feathers had worn thin with
age. His body was bent and gnarled and he squinted to see
where he was directing the wind from his wings.
It came to be that Corpse-Gulper's eyes were so damaged by
age, that ships with sails received no wind at all. The boats
of fishermen were blown onto the rocks and broken to pieces.
Precious farm animals were scattered by random gusts and lost.
Homes were blown down, good soil blown away, and no one could
say what the winds might do next to hurt the lives of
men. |
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Hawks
depend on the wind more than most. They follow the air currents,
using them when they hunt, and they depend on their knowledge of the
winds for their lives. But Corpse-Gulper's bad eyes and horrible aim
caused wild and unpredictable winds and the hawks suffered even more
than men. Many hawks were carried far from where they wanted to be,
hunting became impossible, and many hawks starved to death or were
blown to the ground and to their deaths. For this reason, all the
hawks became fearful and would not take to the
sky.
But
there was one Brave Hawk who was not afraid. He cared not if the
winds were uncontrolled and wild. He scolded his cowardly kin, and
told them that he would soar, and hunt, and fly despite the danger.
The other hawks tried to talk him out of it and said to the brave
hawk, "See...even the men hide from these wild winds. They know that
death awaits any that defy the furious blasts from Corpse-Gulper's
wings, and they no longer travel in their boats or fish upon the
sea, for fear of what will happen to them. They've stopped building
homes, planting their crops, or putting their animals in the field
for fear of losing everything they
have."
The
Brave Hawk refused to bow to fear and told the other hawks, "Am I
not a hawk? I am young, and strong, and I am meant to fly. I will
not cower from these winds." He took flight and began to hunt. But
the Brave Hawk was buffeted by the winds, and the air churned and
whipped all around him. He fought with every bit of his strength
against the deadly gusts, diving and catching new currents when the
old ones failed him or threatened to drive him toward the ground.
With all his skill and his might he strove courageously against the
poorly aimed gusts from Corpse Gulper's wings. But after hours of
struggle, a mighty wind drove the Brave Hawk downward onto the rocks
and there he lay, broken and
dead.
The Goddess Freyja, beautiful Freyja, had
seen the Brave Hawk's fearless battle against the wild winds. She
gently lifted his broken body from the ground and held it in both
her hands. "So great was your might and your main, young hawk,
that you should be rewarded with a victory of sorts."
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It was a simple thing for Freyja to repair the Brave Hawk's
body and restore him to life. She set him on Corpse-Gulper's
great beak, right between his old squinted eyes.
Freyja told the Brave Hawk, "The winds are not always kind,
but neither should they always cause harm. Stay here with
Corpse-Gulper, and lend him your eyes. Help him to properly
aim the wind from his great wings. Men will call you
Veðrfölnir, or Wind-Witherer, for you will calm the wild
winds. Give men enough wind to travel to far off places
and let them return to fishing, and harvesting, and building
their homes without the constant threat of death. As for
hawks and the other birds, give them winds to take them where
they wish to go and to bring them safely to their
prey." |
This was
long ago. All these years later, the gnarled and ancient eagle named
Corpse-Gulper still sits in the uppermost branches of the
world-tree, flapping his great wings and sending winds across our
world. Some men know that a hawk named the Wind-Whitherer sits upon
Corpse-Gulper's beak, though all but a few have forgotten
why...
- The fable “The
Hawk that Fought the Wind” is not based directly on the Lore,
for the Lore does not give a reason why there is a hawk
sitting on the beak of the Eagle at the top of Yggdrasil, the
world-tree. Whatever story or myth that once
existed among our ancestors regarding the hawk's purpose in
sitting there has been lost.
While attempting to give a modern
explanation to this question, the fable is also crafted to
teach a lesson about bravery and perseverance and to explain
the hawk's name in the Lore, which can be translated as
“wind-whitherer.”
For the purpose of this story, we have
brought together into one character the nameless jotun in the
form of an eagle at the “top of Yggdrasil” and Hræsvelgr, the
jotun in the form of an eagle at the “top of the sky” who
forms all the wind with his wings. Despite some strong
parallels between these two jotuns, there is no conclusive
evidence in the Lore that they were one and the same.
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