A DREAM OF BLOOD AND BLACK EELS
A dream came to me in the cruelty of night:
death-twisted masks over men’s features,
swollen bellies of blue corpses,
the drink of leeches darkening the stream as
Snowbourn went forth, flooding the Entwade
with noble blood. I was boating alone,
a spear in my hand like a hunter of eels—
and eels were plenty, plump and writhing
like worms in the earth. Each of the fish
black and shiny bore the faces
of my family till suddenly their faces twisted
into the faces of princelings powerful and noble—
I drove my spear deep into their bodies,
point coming down powerfully,
and yet they slipped away. They slid beneath me
in circles around the boat as their bodies spasmed,
their many faces falling away then
in favor of one: Wiglác, my son.
My arm was swift—I swiped in the blood,
my wrestler’s hand holding tightly
to the face-bearing eel—but it fled from my strength.
Then the eels’ faces foully twisted once more;
then theirs was the hateful face of Hengist the Strong,
laughing and lying, his loathsome tongue
weaving tales of how my weak spirit
doomed my son to die early,
my tender-heartedness. My tears burning,
I shouted how I killed him, that kinsman of lords,
his throat crushed beneath my cruel fingers
when I won our duel and whispered to him:
I did not slay Dagred my lord, though my heart longed for blood,
but hear it said now: his kin I shall kill, and my heart most cruel savors
the opportunity to kill you, to take your life!
They scattered then, and I scoured the river
for one I might catch, an eel to slay.
One eel lingered in the lonesome flood—
its body I crushed—but as the corpse disappeared
into bloody water, I saw it wore not the face
of Hengist the Strong, but that of my strangled son.
Then I sobbed alone in the swelling tide.
Before the day’s dawning, in darkness I woke,
hoping to remember the heroic deeds
of warfare and wrestling my ex-wife would have known—
but in the grey morning my memory failed me
and all I could recall were the corpses and blood.
