Snow Queen

Snow Queen

Behold Freya, Goddess of the North
With breath to freeze the beating heart
Her hands of ice now stretching forth
And bringing snow to every part

No Earth Goddess, warm, gentle she
But ancient Pagan terror to behold
Makes the land colder daily by degree
Nature embodied, both cruel and cold

In homes, old people shiver by the fire
Fearful for food, and the threat of death
This is the coldest joy of Freya's desire
As Arctic wind brings frozen breath

Now the Snow Queen asks her price
This is nature blue in snow and ice

Notes:

I should perhaps (after criticism) make it clear that this is not an "anti-Pagan" poem! I am criticising one strand of Paganism here, and the poem was prompted by both reading one very ill thought out comment that all the snow in Jersey and in the UK was the "goddess purifiying the land with snow" or words very like that, and at the same time seeing news stories about pensioners facing heating bills, but saying that if they didn't have the heat, they would die of hypothermia. How anyone could suggest that the snow was good made me think they simply weren't considering the news enough. It did make me cross, which is why I penned the poem, drawing upon both Hans Christian Anderson - the Snow Queen is also Freya in his story - and deliberately providing a comment on the Darwinian savagery of nature - "blue in snow and ice" is a riff on "red in tooth and claw"!