Poeming Kristin Lavransdatter: Ulf
"The Axe-Bearer's Love Song"
Hello, Poetry Friend
I got all the way through my year of posting Kristin poems at Project Redux without writing one about Ulf, who is with Kristin at the end, when she dies. It was my friend Callie Feyen who swooned over the slow-burn reveal of Ulf’s love for Kristin.
I confess, I hadn’t thought much about it. But once I did, I couldn’t stop. This was a love on the level of Severus Snape’s confession of his always love for Lily. And Ulf says nothing to anyone until the very last page of this very, very looooooooong book.
To love in secret is an incredible burden and, strangely, an incredible delight. In Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Sibyl doesn’t tell her brother about her love for Dorian, her Prince Charming:
“She was thinking of Prince Charming, and, that she might think of him all the more, she did not talk of him.”
I’m sure Ulf was doing the same during many a conversation with his best mate and cousin, Erlend, Kristin’s husband.
Ulf, my good man, here is your poem.
The Axe-Bearer’s Love Song
Stay here. I didn’t ask for you to come.
I came because you needed me. Because
I needed to see you. Go back. Go home.
Tonight I swear I will not break God’s laws.
You must light my way, Kristin. Light it all.
Side by side we pray, your hand oh so close.
Look into my eyes—take the lead. Don’t fall.
Don’t make me touch you. Not now, not when those
years between us might rip free. Remember
all those times I laughed? I tried everything
to keep you from feeling my love’s embers.
Too late you gave to me a wedding ring.
Morning snow falls new from heaven’s highest
and I regret that I was ever pious.
–Megan WillomeP.S. Whenever I pass one of those axe-throwing places, I smile and think of Ulf. You know who else carred an axe? Olaf, patron saint of Norway. What does your love carry? Write a poem about it and share it with me, if you like.
Happy poeming!
Megan