The Exile of Brynhild
Excerpted from the first chapter of the novel, Loving Brynhild
Odin evicted me from Asgard, the heavenly abode, because I fell madly
in love with a handsome, young general who was slated to die that day.
The handsome young warrior didn't die that day. I saved him, against
orders, and it was the old general with the grey hair who died instead
and was whisked back to Valhalla by me and my Valkyries. I paid dearly
for this transgression. I was to live another life on planet Earth,
that festering, violent cauldron of primitive emotions and savage desires.
Earth was no place for a goddess. But I had no choice. Odin's orders
were issued and there I was, falling through the seven heavens, falling,
falling, falling, until I landed on Mount Hindarfiall.
You see, Odin, the Supreme Being, was madly in love with me.
Yes, he had a wife. Odin was severe with his wife, Frigg, who was constantly
jealous and suspicious about his relationship with me. She could not
leave it alone, and he would order her to cease and desist with her
constant questions and innuendoes. She carried on relentlessly when
so handled by Odin. She fairly screamed at him, "It's because you
would leave me for a brilliant, young beauty if we were human and living
down there with the rest of them, wouldn't you? You're always going
on and on about how you love all of them. You sympathise with the seducer!"
"Yes, that's right," Odin would scream back, "Because
I am the Ultimate Seducer! I am the All and the Nothing, the Finite
and the Infinite. They call me God and many other names — All-Father,
Grim, Ganglari, Herian, Hialmberi, Thekk, High, Just-as-high, Vakr,
Skilfing — as you well know, given the Tower of Babble that humans
have devised with their languages."
Frigg's frustration had some basis to it. Odin was obsessed with human
relationships. Romance was a particularly brutal area for humans, fraught
with pain and misunderstandings. Thus, the need arose for the "secret
code" that Odin devised just for humans. The code was based on
eye contact alone. Holding one's gaze steadily and directly for a prolonged
period of time while smiling or looking content meant, "I desire
you." Briefly meeting the other's gaze but then looking away quickly
and then lowering the eyes, still keeping the beloved in one's peripheral
vision meant, "I'm thinking about it but I need more time."
Holding the other's gaze steadily but without smiling and sometimes
with a rather grim facial expression meant, "why are you hurting
me like this?" And the list went on and on.
It was madness. Divine madness.
Yes, Odin loved me. But Odin and I were bound to have a falling out.
I had already strained Odin's patience with a series of minor infractions.
Nevertheless, when I finally broke with Odin, it all happened so fast
that I hardly knew what hit me.
It was just another typical day in the life of a Valkyrie. I had been
sent to the front lines of a significant battle to collect the most
honourable souls. The old king, Helm Gunnar, fought that night against
the young King Agnar. Odin had promised the victory to the wise and
aged Helm Gunnar.
But Agnar was a beautiful man, blonde and bearded; he was the perfect
model of a Norse warrior. I fell in love with him at first sight. I
had arrived at the scene just a few seconds too early. Victory did not
yet belong to Helm Gunnar; Agnar, who was slated to die that day, was
still alive and still embroiled in the thick of the battle.
I did the unthinkable. I intervened, and no one had asked me. I interfered
with Agnar's agenda. I countermanded Odin's decree. I saved Agnar, and
instead condemned Helm Gunnar, the aged and legendary warrior, to an
untimely death.
