 Yew the onwald older than Etins In the year's winter her winsome limbs Are green with leaves, loaded with berries, Bright red fruits frought with Wod, Whose needles bestow strange dreams, or death; Whose wood is matchless for making bows, Whose roots are eagre to reach into howes. Among her limbs laden with worlds, Gallows bourne Óðinn goes where He will, Looking into everything, lowest and highest, Above, where the eagle, ever spreads wings, Below, where Nithogg, harmful, lies gnawing: Ever-living trunk eldest of tree-kin, Awesome steed that Allfather tamed When a gift to ravens on gallows twisting, He beheld the runes: that bole holds all. Waxing and waning the welkin's crescent, In branches green though gripped by ice, Silvers snow-land in the snake's pain, When the Rime-hunter, rune-wise Ullr Bender of Wyrd, and bow of stave-wood, Notches the dart that need fletched: He eyes an elk, ends its life, On the branches it killed, the buck roasts, singeing. |
