From The Bookes of Gíld-rac Manuscript: The Epic Poem of The History of The Kingdom of Kerrigarðr (1051-1501): Heyeoahkah’s Tales set around 1180 on the  island of Ximayaca (by the 1500s, the Spanish colony of Jamaigua of the Antilhas del Rey de Castella or New Spain).  The first of these tales narrates two Viking raids in Sherakí country ca. 1050— the first led by Manir; the second, by Dagazar, founder of the Kingdom of Kerrigarðr.

With rhetorical prowess seasoned with her culinary gifts, Heyeoahkah uses her wizardly story-telling skills at reviewing history to play games with belly-aching warriors not so much for their entertainment as for hers.

O F  W O L F F E M  B O R N

N o v a i n i  a n d  T h e  W i n d - w o l f

hen wood-trolls stoked      Hel’s frost and ash,
    pyres blown on Wolffem tones
howled to make right      harried deeds of night.
    Then, The Great Wind’s magic reigned.

For this was a time      when gales dressed beasts
    to brave flames of fear.
Women ruled the day     and at night won hearts
    of wind-gods, storm-bred, bold.

It was like this.      With her heart fixed,
    The Wind reared wolves upon Novaini,
a mourning priestess,      pried from deepest sleep
    to place amulets on her husband’s grave.

She stumbled blindly,      searching for a path
     to take her from her tent.
Tár, meddlesome guide,      gave her lost routes;
     took her instead to a room of gilded wood.

Tár tricked the priestess      on a twisting trail
    to another grave that she guarded,
then set her down      to sing burial rhymes
    until red skin-doors sank the grey horizon.

There a gale rose      in a thunderous voice:
    ‘I am The Hallowing Wind.
You have not grieved      with grace nor fear.
    You did not truly love your dead while he lived.’

Then The Wind swept her      down a second path
    where She kept many guises.
The Goddess of Gales     with gall in her stride
    sped Novaini into secret valleys.

There rose a white stone,      a strange wyrding hoop
    floating from a fearsome height.
Soon, a longhouse sailed      from breaks in the sky,
    from clouds that caught the rains.

When the house was close,       the priestess entered.
    It had high, wholesome beams;
its hearth, bare and damp,      austere and dank,
    set deep within its wooden floors.

There a fetid pond      lapped its faded boards     
    with fungus, floating, thick.
It was then she heard      the shrillest cry of death:
     a wolf fiend struck the hooded night.

Upon its heels, beasts,      roaring, beating shields,
    ploughed through the night, razing trees
in their hellish path      with howls and screams of
    ‘Mani, Mani, Ma-an-ir!’

She turned to run,      but heavy with sleep,
    her eyes would not tell what was true.
The wolfskins stalked her      as she staggered home
    praying to The Riotous Wind as she ran.

The hungry beasts      broke the camp’s walls,
    razed every sleeping tent,
ate every Skræling son,      struck the very moon     
    from the silent skies.

For many long nights      the village mourned,
    wailing at deaths and weeping at births;
for the Manir beasts      attacked each woman
    and the women bore and birthed their children.

Only females came,      called themselves ‘Wolffem’
    (for The Hallowing Wind had a hand in this).
Wolffem did not leave      their mothers or nurses
    except to look for the moon.

Their land grew bleak.      Streams dried to trickles.
    The wetlands could fill no fruit sweet.
Fevered drizzles came      drinking the trees’ sap.
    Good game took to the hills.

T h e  L a s t  o f  T h e  M a n i - m e n
( o r  D a g a z a r ’ s  F a t e  i n  t h e  W o l f f e m ’ s  L a n d )

ne night, two Wolffem,      woken by a dream,
    readied for the rise of the moon.
They knew by crescents —      by the new moon’s climb
                on that calm winter’s night.

When the moon-sign came      they knew its meaning.
    The Wolffem called The Hallowing Wind
to open their hearts      and close their eyes,
    so that they could hear fear.

That ominous night      no owl left its branch.
    Tár’s Staff came as called.
She cast a silence      across the east bank
        from which the first Mani came.

Quickly, The Wind      conjured a trick
    to mar the plans of the Mani-men.
She lifted an owl      from its sturdy perch
    in the blinding centre of a blue flame.

She set the bird so,       on one Wolffem’s breast
    entreating her  to stay very still.
Two Mani, nearby —      Údor and Halfdane —
    had followed the women into the forest.

They saw the bird      on the woman’s breast.
    Údor said to Halfdane:
‘Spear her in the heart.’      But Halfdane paused,
    the mist too fast and thick.

Halfdane was afraid,      bit his lip and said:
    ‘The feathered one suckles the female.’
Both Mani trembled —       their eyes telling true
    what could not be so.

Údor, baffled, said:       ‘The bird? The Skræling?
    Which is alive and which is dead?’
Soon neither Údor      nor Halfdane could say
    if the bird or the Wolffem breathed.

They could not aim      their witch-tailed spears —
    not knowing which creature would take flight.
Treading too tightly      on the tricky task,
    they began to wonder which they preferred dead.

Because Halfdane’s spear      quivered the most,
    he pretended to consider the deed:
‘Does the Screecher’s chest      beat the owl’s alive?
    Does the bird open the air to her breast?’

And while he wavered,      weighing this, then that,
    The Gale flew down upon them —
sword and spear wrenched      from each man’s grasp —
    striking the Mani dead as stones.

The Wind took all night      to waft calm again
    (for it takes much rage to wreak havoc).
Then she told the Wolffem      to bury the owl
    next to the grave of Novaini’s husband.

She said: ‘Keep to your lodge      for seven nights,
    say “Lupigash” seven times and no more.’
On the eighth night       they stepped from the lodge
    with the seal of ‘Lupigash’ on their lips.

The Great Gale rose,      shook the tallest oaks,
    greeting Wolffem with gifts of knowledge —
bags of golden dust       folded in mogwa-seeds —
    and ways to track the húracan.

But still no men      then lived in the land
    struck by The Wind’s wrath.
Soon Wolffem grew      weary of their sisters
    and became lax in collecting the seeds.

One gathering-night,      a Wolffem priestess —
    He’yeya The Silent —
went out to search      for the gilded seeds,
    her pouch, ten days empty.

The fate-walk hidden,      she filled her pouch
    while new Mani rode the waves:
their ships borne on seas      from yawning skies
    with which The Wind had dressed herself.

The Silent One gathered       the first grain of gold
    when The Wind-wolf struck.
The Gale snarled men       into knotted woods,
    cut others from their ships.

And with her finger,      The Wind stirred the seas
    driving sea-caught Mani south.
All but one she saved      to sow Wolffem seed,
    to breed new tales and give them bellyaches.






[Novaini and The Wind Wolf was first published as part of an essay, "Historical Lacunae and Poetic Space", in Scarp 30]

Hel — Land of the Dead in Old Norse myth; the sweating cold caves of the underground of Ximayaca and which lead to The Edge of The World

Women ruled the day— refers to the continuing practice of celebrating the Blood Sacrifice Feast to the díses, female spirits of the woods on behalf of those loyal to Freyja and Vanir belief systems surrounding her. The Dísabóð is a major post-harvest feast to celebrate the keeping away of bad luck and ghosts from the past.

Tár — Obscure Norse tár ‘tears’;  SH. and KER. ‘wind-wolf,’ Ximacan/Arawakan meaning unknown

Manir— refers to Viking raider (c.1000 (?))Manir the Meanhearted Manirsson

Skræling— Obscure Norse for "indian" or "screecher"

Mani-men — Manir's sons/descendants/kinsmen

Tár’s Staff — Spout or Wind-cone

witch-tailed — cursed





















Lupigash — name later taken by all Wolffem high priestesses






Mogwa — believed to be the source of the spores from which Wolffem vision-making dust is made







He’yeya The Silent — Sheraki high priestess taken captive by Dagazar and whom he later married

saved — meaning ‘selected’; the ‘selected’ one being Dagazar