The Fledgeling’s Song
Part I: The Woe of the Fledgeling
Part II: The Old Bard’s Wisdom
Part III: The Flight of the Hawk
The Woe of the Fledgeling
He drank not from the mead-sea and the war-band laughed, saying he was ever drowning in the honey-flood. He bathed in the swan’s path and they mocked him as if reek clung to his hide. He bowed with fair words to the mead-maids and they jeered that he drooled with lust like a wolf before the lambs.
He gave silver at the ale-board yet they named him beggar of the bench. When he showed his purse was full, they said pride swelled in him like the hoard-guarding wyrm. Thus, whatever he did, the tongue-play of the hearth turned against him and their laughter was the storm-wind in his ears.
So sat the fledgeling, feather-thin in spirit, torn by the talon of false speech, his heart a lone fire without kin to tend it.
The Old Bard’s Wisdom
By the fire-seat the fledgeling sat, soul heavy with the weight of lie-speech. He muttered of crooked tongues, that tale-weavers twisted truth for sport, saying, “The saga is sweeter than the fact.” His heart was raw from their word-storm, his thought gnawed by the wolf of loneliness.
Then came the old song-smith, grey in beard, clear in eye. He listened, stone-still, until the fledgeling’s grief was spent.
The Bard spoke, voice keen as a hawk’s talon:
“Mockery is mead. They drink it to test you. Rage, and they name you fire-mad. Weep, and they name you child. Laugh, and they name you man.”
The fledgeling bowed his head. “What path, then, lays before me?”
The Bard answered, words like whetted steel:
“Seize their jest. Laugh first. Strike yourself with their spear of scorn, and you will not bleed. Do this, and you shed the fledgeling’s down. Do this, and you grow hawk’s wings.”
The Flight of the Hawk
Dawn rose on the whale-road’s edge, mist thick as woven wool. Above, the sky-hunter wheeled, keen-eyed, watching. The fledgeling remembered the Bard’s claw-words and let laughter spill, though brittle as ice at first. The war-band laughed louder, but he did not shrink. He joined them, voice ringing like iron on anvil.
Then the wound in his breast, once torn by false speech, closed. He saw jest as hearth-fire, not storm-wind. Their mirth bound him to them as shield to shield. No more they cast him out as driftwood from their tide. Their ways became his ways. The jest, the horn, the clasp of brother-hand. No longer was he named child, nor did he name himself outcast.
That night the hall thundered with song. He sang also and the hawk stooped low above the rooftree, not as watcher apart but as herald of one who had taken flight.