Song of the Askelde Men

Summary

 * Full Title: Song of the Askelde Men
 * Author: Unknown
 * Value: 5 (Skyrim)
 * Weight: 1

Skyrim

 * Haemar's Cavern, on a bookself.
 * Bloodlet Throne.
 * High Hrothgar.
 * Windpeak Inn, Dawnstar, in room on left of bar.
 * Can be bought from Urag gro-Shub in the Arcanaeum.
 * Jorrvaskr, inside Vilkas's end table.

Content
A traditional Nordic poem about a ghost stalking those that killed him

Translation 3E213 Atheneum Monks at Old Anthel

Fifty Nights from home I last awoke
 * upon a sky-flung cliff in Hjaalmarch Hold

Though my flesh had died and gone to ground
 * My Vision went on, from body unbound

Winking there in the vale whence I came
 * This dead man's eyes saw pale flame

Where men the same who took life away
 * Sung high their battle-glory and praise

Wafting went I, a shade or a wight
 * Through stoic pines, pitched ink of night

Ere I came upon the pyre-burning throng
 * I heard carried on wind's wing their song

"Sing high and clear, bandsmen born of sky
 * Let Sovngarde hear and join our cry"

"These honored dead shed blood upon the fen
 * Ending Orc and Elf and traitor men."

"Your spirit went unto and filled their heart
 * You sped them to glory, Hail Spirit Wulfharth"

Then oil from urns fed greedy flames
 * burning what few my legion and I slayed

Wordlessy they chanted then until dawn
 * Every flake of ash gathered ere they marched on

Swept along unseen, so too went I
 * Meekly haunting these Children of the Sky

Tireless they went, over hearth and hill
 * Exhaustion seemed only to spur them still

Unflagging they went, a whorl of rage
 * Soon finding our camp, bloated with prey

My dead heart ached for I knew men within
 * Doomed, never knowing how close was their end

Again the Nord chests swelled up in refrain
 * I screamed unheard. I wept with horror plain

"Hear us, our ancestor, Ash King, Ysmir
 * Honor this warband as we to glory repair"

"Those dead to whom you spoke and heard
 * We bear them upon us, Your valor conferred"

And so it was, to the man each was smeared
 * With ash of a Brother's bone, blood and beard

These ashen brutes, the Askelde Men
 * Set to a gruesome task, each bowstring bent

I bellowed then, a cry of desperate rage
 * A futile howl among those men, an empty page

Yet one elder turned and unblinking, stared
 * into the vapor-soul of me, his nostrils flared

He bellowed ancient words, his beard aflame
 * And my vision fell away, Peace at last came