EN079.11 Denmarks
Ott 2025
N. At All Burgs 3
1. Denmarks Lost
79.11 This is written on all our burgs:
How we lost our Denmarks, sixteen hundred and two years after Aldland perished:
As a result of Wodin’s infidelity and misjudgment, the Magy had become master over eastern Skeanland, though he dared not cross the mountains or the sea. The mother did not want it back. She spoke, declaring: “I see no threat in his weapons, but indeed in taking the Skeanlanders back, as they have become mixed and corrupted.” The assembly agreed, and so the land was left to the Magy.
More than a hundred years earlier, the Danes had begun trading with them, giving them iron weapons and tools in exchange for golden ornaments as well as copper and iron ore. The mother sent messengers and advised them to cease this trade. Their morals, she said, were in peril, [080] and if they should lose their morals, they would also lose their freedom. But the Danes did not heed this advice. They refused to accept that their morality could be subverted, so they simply ignored her message.
At long last, they sold even their own weapons and food stores. And that evil wrought its own penalty: Their bodies were bedecked with garishness and gloss, but their warehouses and barns were emptied.
Barely a hundred years after the day that the first ship with provisions had set out, poverty and privation entered in through the windows. Hunger spread its wings and came down upon the land. Discord marched loudly through the streets and into the houses. Love became homeless and unity deserted them. The children wanted food from their mothers, and the mothers had jewelry but no food. The wives begged their husbands, who in turn begged the aldermen. But the aldermen themselves had nothing, or kept what they did have hidden away.
Now the ornaments had to be sold, but while the navigators were underway with them, frost came and laid a sheet over sea and strait. When this bridge of ice was full built, vigilance crossed it [081] to forsake the land, and treachery took its throne. Instead of guarding the shores, the people hitched their horses to their sleighs and drove to Skeanland. The Skeanlanders, who longed for their ancestral land, came to the Denmarks. On a bright night, they arrived. They laid claim to the land of their ancestors and, during the fighting which arose thereof, Finns sneaked into the empty villages and kidnapped the children.
Because of this and the lack of good weapons, they lost the battle and, with it, their freedom — as the Magy became their master. This was the consequence of not reading Frya’s Tex and neglecting her advice. Some believe they were betrayed by the aldermen and that the maidens had known of this long before. But any who opened their mouth to speak the truth had it shut with a lock of gold.[1] It is not for us to judge upon this, but we will tell you this loud and clear:
Rely not overmuch on the wisdom and virtue, neither of your nobles nor of your maidens, for — if it is to endure — every man must keep watch over his own passions and safeguard the common good.
Notes
- ↑ ‘lock of gold’ (GOLDEN KÉDNE) — lit.: ‘golden chains’; seems to imply that reports of corruption were repressed through bribery.
Continue Reading
EN076.13 Athenia ᐊ previous/next ᐅ EN082.01 Frana
In alternative order:
EN136.08 Yesus ᐊ previous/next ᐅ EN082.01 Frana
In other languages
Other English translations
Chapters M, N and O: Sandbach 1876