I leave this message for you, O Great Freya, goddess of the womb, the furrow, and the forest. I will go out from this cave by full moonlight to seek the food I no longer have. There has been nothing for three days now, and we drink only water from the snow and eat pieces of bark I peel from the branches of trees. I cannot supply enough Water and bark, even small twigs, to those of us who are left. I leave these thoughts here by the Fire–the dwindling Fire–the last of the wood, beside my sleeping, exhausted, sick family. I have only that much strength left–to shuffle through the glinting snow under your pale light, following–if you will grant it–the trail of the Rabbit or the horned, fleet ones, your speeded hoofed ones, the Deer. If it is your wish that we should survive this long Night of the soul’s starvation, if you will show me the track, slow the Rabbit, limp the Deer and fix it in its tracks, confused by my ghostly self. If you let me shoot it and carry it home on these weakening shoulders, then I will believe, O Great Freya, that this dying Fire will not be extinguished entirely–that the great cold and long Night will end, the Greening will return, the seeds we sow will sprout, and our Women will ask for love’s plowing, love’s sowing, and love’s harvest in the full soft Light of your eternal grace.
O Great Goddess, have Mercy on us who worship you!