ACT ONE In the foyer and cloakrooms the performance has already begun. Here the public encounter the two ravens HUGIN and MUGIN, dressed in white tie and tails. The actors wear half-masks with large beaks which leave their mouths free. HUGIN and MUGIN mingle with the public. They listen, spy, try to find out what people are talking about. Now and then they jot down something overheard on their big writing pads and repeat in a loud murmur these disjointed fragments… The auditorium itself is in darkness as the public enter. Fantastic furry creatures with tails sell programmes and show people to their places. A monotonous, drone-like hum sounds over the loudspeakers. This will continue as the performance begins, and accompany the first few exchanges of dialogue. Each UNDERGROUNDER has a rigmarole which is whispered to members of the audience as they are shown to their places. The rigmarole is not synchronised, and each creature starts again from the beginning once it is finished, regardless of how far the others may have got. A general impression of flickering torch-light, paws, fur and claws accompanied by an asymmetrical sound-picture of secretive, whispering voices. This is Theatre in the Round, with the main arena in the centre and the public on all sides. THE RIGMAROLE OF THE UNDERGROUNDER Pay no attention to the others. You can't trust them. You don't know who they are. You don't know what they've done. You should hear what they say to each other when they think no-one's listening. I trust no-one. I keep to myself. I live under the ground. I sit by myself. Often I sit still. So still it's hard to see me. But I'm there. Oh I'm there alright, don't doubt it. No-one messes me about. I've got claws too. And hairs that bristle. Ignore the others. You can't trust them etc etc (Back to the beginning again) I said the theatre was in darkness. There is one point of light, however. In the middle of the stage stands a smooth column illuminated in a thin cross-beam of light. There may also be a little fog or smoke drifting around its base. There is a head atop this column (which houses the rest of the actor's body). This is MIMIR'S HEAD. The mouth is free, but the rest of the head is modelled to create an impression of enormous and grotesque size. MIMIR'S HEAD remains absolutely still. A figure wearing a cape and carrying a staff - ODIN - walks slowly towards MIMIR'S HEAD. Stops some way off and knocks hard on the ground, three times, with his staff. At once the UNDERGROUNDERS cease their whispering and 'freeze'. Then, loudly and rhythmically, they repeat the rigmarole in chorus. Pay no attetnion to the others. You can't trust them. You don't know who they are. You don't know what they've done. You should hear what they say to each other when they think no-one's listening. I trust no-one. (They glide out of the room, hissing like snakes) Suddenly: spot on FENRIR:a man with fangs, eyebrows that meet in the centre and a naked, hairy chest. He rises from his seat among the audience. THREE FEMALE AESIR (goddesses) hold him by means of thin, glistening strands of silk ribbon. He flails and tears at these, but remains bound. FENRIR I am the Wolf. I am Greyleg. I am Fenrir. Release me. (ODIN knocks with this staff on the floor. FENRIR and the three women 'freeze'. The spot remains on them. ) (At the same time, in another part of the room, light on TWO AESIR (gods) 1st GOD But as long as Balder is with us - 2nd GOD As long as we have Balder no harm can come to us. (One of the three women holding Fenrir captive 'wakes'. The others remain in their 'fetter'. ) 1st GODDESS As long as Balder lives, evil and violence can never triumph in the world. (A scream cuts across the room, and the goddess at once freezes again, as do the two male gods. Now we see the source of the scream - a young man writhing in agony, his hands pressed against his ears. ) BALDER I can't sleep. I dare not even close my eyes. I have such dreams. Of naked bodies, white as wet stone, cold and slippery, pressing down on me. Choking me. Sucking the air from my mouth. Pressing on my chest. My thighs. I can't breathe. (ODIN strikes the ground with his staff. BALDER too 'freezes'. At the same time: the two ravens HUGIN and MUNIN appear. They run to ODIN, flapping their arms and cawing, and stand one on each side of him, waving the notepads with their notes taken in the foyer. ) HUGIN Strange winds are blowing, Master. Winters pass without snow and the rain falls all summer long. MUNIN The fish leave the sea, the rocks on the beach are washed yellow with slime and the great beasts forget to hibernate. HUGIN The forest is rotting, Master. Trees fall, or else lean against each other for support like brothers in sickness. MUNIN That's the way it is in Midgard. MUNIN That's the way it is in Jotunheim. ODIN And that's the way it is, too, among the gods in Asgard. (ODIN beats on the floor with his staff. All the spots on the frozen tableaux go out. A jab from the music. ODIN removes his cape - slowly. Hands it to HUGIN. Removes his wide-brimmed black hat. Hands it to MUNIN. We see now that the king of the gods has a black patch over one eye. ) ODIN A great unease creeps slowly across Idavoll. The Aesir come together and meet at Weird's Well. All have questions, none have answers. Each day Odin sends out his two ravens - Hugin and Munin - to hop among the branches of the holy tree. Each day he dreads that they will return with the news that the leaves of Yggdrasil too have begun to yellow and die. But the leaves of the great ash remains as green as ever, and Odin breathes again. For he knows that while Yggdrasil's great branches stretch over the world there is still a hope of a brighter time to come. That is what has been prophesied. That is what is written in the runes. (He approaches the column. Puts his hand on MIMIR'S large, wrinkled forehead) Am I right? MIMIR'S HEAD (Moving for the first time. Opens his mouth)We must believe so… ODIN That is what we will do. Believe. MIMIR'S HEAD Believe what you like. ODIN Did we not drink from the same source? MIMIR'S HEAD I am Mimir. I am a head with no body. ODIN You are wisdom! MIMIR'S HEAD Where I am, I am. ODIN Or I take you with me! (He gestures to HUGIN and MUNIN, then points to the column) MIMIR'S HEAD Who understands up and down? In and out? Back and forth? Who can say what has happened? Or what might have happened? Who can say what will happen? And yet we must tell it. The whole story. (Music. HUGIN and MUNIN tilt the column back. It is on wheels, and the two ravens wheel it out in front of them. ) MIMIR'S HEAD (Without a pause - shouting) For who knows what he believes until he has opened his mouth and said it? ODIN Only by telling the story. Always the story. Only the story gives life meaning. Only the story makes it all hang together. (Music louder) MIMIR'S HEAD (shouting) The world is a great story. Make it up. Tell it. Over and over again. Tell it each time as though it were a new story. ODIN (shouting) But where to begin? (The music increases in volume) MIMIR'S HEAD (shouting) Anywhere. Anywhere at all. ODIN (shouting)Then I'll begin at the beginning. MIMIR'S HEAD (really howling)Before that! Long before that! (He goes out) (ODIN is briefly alone. He lifts his face to the music which thunders around him on all sides. Blackout. New lighting. New music. New mood. Two groups of dancers approach each other from opposite sides. One represents Cold, the other Warmth. They dance the Creation of the World. ODIN'S voice over the loudspeakers. He is not visible on stage. If possible his voice should 'wander' from speaker to speaker, so that he seems to encircle the stage and the audience. ) ODIN'S VOICE (as the dancers illustrate his words) No-one knows where the fog came from. No- one knows what lit the first spark. We know only this:that in the beginning there was Cold, and there was Warmth. On the one side Niflheim. The frost and the fog. On the other Muspellsheim, a sea of seething flame. And between them, nothingness. Ginnungagap - the vast, bottomless chasm . Here, in this vast emptiness between light and dark, at the meeting of ice and fire, life began. For there was an open channel in the land of frost and fog, and through this channel rivers flowed into Ginnungagap, foaming over the lip of the abyss, freezing into layer upon layer of vast, frost-decked icicles. In this way the whole of one side of Ginnungagap was filled with ice, snow, damp and cold. But from the other side - from Muspellheim - the flames licked and the sparks danced. And in the middle of the gap the air grew mild and still. The ice and the heat met. And the ice began to melt, and to drip. (The dancers squat down in a huddle. Hidden from the audience two put on a panto 'stage-cow' costume. The cow becomes visible on cue) And from this meeting, shaped by the cold and quickened into life by the heat, there emerged a creature with udders and horns:a huge cow! (The cow is seen. The dancers blow kisses to it. The cow bellows, loudly and with great feeling) HUGIN AND MUGIN (appearing suddenly - high up - in a balcony, for example. Pointing to the cow they sing) Look, the great cow has been born, the very first creature - Hello! Her eyes are as mild as well-chewed corn and she's lovely big udders that swing down below! Here comes the milk, it's warm and white, look at it squirt and flow - (The cow gives a loud moooo. From this point on the dancers join in the song) The first cow has mooed her first moo, her message was loud and clear. So friends, when pride, begins to wriggle inside, remember now it all began with a cow! (The light on HUGIN and MUGIN goes out. The dancers leave. ODIN appears. He strokes the cow) ODIN Now then…Audhumla. (to the audience) Its name was Audhumla. It means, the she- cow, rich in milk. (to the cow) And it was true, what they sang. You had more than enough milk. (Pulls an udder. The milk jets out) They say it ran in rivers from your huge teats. YMER (off) Food! Food! (He enters. An enormous troll, huge and grotesque. Yet when he speaks he sounds almost like a fretting child, and his words run into each other) Food-food-food-food-food-food-food (etc) ODIN (Points to the cow) Help yourself. The milk is served. (Ymer throws himself under the cow, squashes the udders into his mouth and begins to drink. Milk squirts out everywhere) ODIN (pointing to Ymer) Here we have the second of the first two creations. A giant named Ymer. He too was born of the meeting between ice and fire. (HUGIN & MUGIN appear, one on each side of Odin) HUGIN I'd always thought of Ymer as being bigger than that. MUGIN And uglier. HUGIN Well - bigger, at any rate. MUNIN Much bigger. HUGIN In fact, even bigger than that! HUGIN AND MUNIN (nodding, together) Mm. ODIN There never was a bigger giant. This here is a model, naturally. The format is greatly reduced. HUGIN AND MUGIN Oh. I see. Mm. ODIN A copy. Scaled down more than a thousand times. (The two ravens yawn) More than ten thousand times! (The two ravens yawn) This nose, for example… (He takes hold of Ymer's nose) This enormous snout would, in reality - in our reality - reach right across Midgard and extend deep beyond into Jotunheimen! That's how big Ymer is. He is, beyond all reasonable comprehension, GIGANTIC! YMER (gets up , dries his mouth, still fretting)I'm tired. I'm tired-tired-tired-tired- tired-tired-tired (etc)(He stumps off without a glance at the others) ODIN And he's always tired. Or hungry. Tired and hungry. Hungry and tired. AUDHUMLA Mo-oo-oo. ODIN (Strokes her) There there…our cow. HUGIN Well in that case Audhumla too must have been quite…big? ODIN A mountain, on top of another mountain, piled on top of a hundred other mountains. Everything was big in those days. Beyond all conception huge… (Audhumla wanders from Odin towards some large 'rocks') HUGIN What's it doing now? What's it going over there for? ODIN Cows like salt. And this first of all cows is no different from the cows of today. MUNIN Look, its licking the rime on the stones. HUGIN (follows, rubs his finger on a stone, licks it)Yes, it tastes salty alright. MUNIN (Pointing) But what in the name of twigs and nests is this? (Hair suddenly sprouts from the stone the cow is licking) HUGIN It looks like hair! Like a head of bushy hair! MUNIN With a forehead and eyes. And nose and mouth and chin… (A human head is licked out of the stone The lighting changes. Dream-like music as the cow slowly licks a naked male body out of the stone. The light narrows. Hugin and Mugin leave in the half-light) ODIN (We sense rather than actually see him) And the cow licks and licks. That great tongue washes over the stone. A head, neck and shoulders appear…A day passes. Chest and stomach. Another day passes. And by the third day the whole body has appeared. It's a man. Big and handsome. His name is Buri. All the gods, all the Aesir are descended from him. (Odin's hat and cape hang nearby - where Hugin and Mugin hung them earlier. Now Odin takes his cloak and wraps it carefully around the naked Buri. It is as though Buri neither sees nor feels Odin - each seem to be in separate worlds. ) ODIN (Softly) He is my grandfather. My grandfather…(Buri leaves slowly to the sound of poetic music) (Sudden change. Entry of a riotous horde - those fantastical beings whom we earlier called the UNDERGROUNDERS. Ymer enters with them. Dancing, singing) THE UNDERGROUNDERS/YMERS CHILDREN (singing) 1ST GROUP But Ymer too, Ymer had kids, Ymer had kids with himself. 2ND GROUP Well tell! IST GROUP Ymer had kids with himself! 2ND GROUP Well well! Well well! IST GROUP Ymer had kids with himself! 2ND GROUP He felt hot one night and he lay on the floor, the sweat began to run and it began to pour IST GROUP Tell us more! Tell us more! 2ND GROUP He lifted up his armmpit and from beneath there sprang - IST GROUP BANG! 2ND GROUP Two funny looking things, one short and one long IST GROUP Sing the song! Sing the song! 2ND GROUP With a sigh and a bang and an almighty flex … 2ND GROUP . . he made two beings of the opposite sex! 1ST GROUP Yes Ymer too, Ymer had kids, Ymer had kids with himself. 2ND GROUP Well tell! IST GROUP Ymer had kids with himself! 2ND GROUP Well well! well well! IST GROUP Ymer had kids with himself! ALL And his hairy legs said alright, alright, if an armpit can do it then so can we. And they rubbed themselves together, knee against knee, ankle to ankle, foot to foot, until they got what they wanted and a child was born - one leg was the father and the other was the mother - clap your hands and shout for joy, there were six big heads on the beautiful boy! Our noble race begins this way, we're giants, gnomes and trolls; but most of all we'd like you to call us Giants. Giants! (The dance continues) HUGIN AND MUGIN (in the dark) Giants? Ergh! Ugh! (Spot searches for them, finds them sitting with the audience) ODIN (without waiting) Yes, but in the beginning it must have been alright - HUGIN With the Giants? MUNIN Caw-caw! HUGIN How do you know ? You weren't even born then! Hm? ODIN No. I came later… THE DANCERS (Repeat in steady unison) Giants! Giants! (The dance becomes threatening. But it is as though Odin does not want to see it) ODIN (tries to drown the voices) The newly created races must have managed to life in peace with one another. At any rate they had children together. Many of them. I myself am the son of a giantess, Bestla, and of B½r the son of Buri. HUGIN (rises and shouts) But the trolls are increasing in number all the time! Can't you see? Don't you have eyes in your head? (The dance becomes ever more threatening) MUNIN (shouts) The giant Ymer is dull and lazy. He drinks milk, he sleeps. That's about all he does. And all the time more and more horrible trolls come oozing out of his big body! HUGIN Caw-caw! The place is crawling with Ogres! (The dancers gather round Odin and press in on him) ODIN (to the trolls) I know I'm not like you. But is that my fault? Did I ask to be born different? Who can decide the number of hands and heads he's to be born with? DANCERS Giant! Giants! ODIN Leave me be! (They barge him from side to side) Don't I have just as much right to live as you ? DANCERS Giants! Giants! ODIN (to the audience) And then one day I discover I am no longer alone! See! My two brothers - Vili and Ve! (He points) (Vili and Ve are seen. Both carry sharpened sticks raised above their heads) ODIN (without pausing) We feel threatened. We know we're the minority. We realise now that whoever is different always runs the risk of being pushed out. And we know, too, that we live on the edge of an abyss - the gaping throat of the Ginnungagap! DANCERS (Pushing him) Giants! Giants! ODIN (With both arms raised) Vili and Ve - my brothers and I - we revolt against Ymer and his race! (Vili throws him a stick which he catches in mid-air and begins to wield like a dangerous weapon. Cacophony: music, shouting and brawling beneath wildly flickering disco-like lighting. The three brothers manage to drive the trolls off. The dancers disappear. Sudden stillness. The three brothers stand alone, blood smeared on their faces and hands) ODIN It was not our idea that it should be like this. VILI We had no choice. ODIN (with feeling) How I hate that sentence. VE But brother, what else could we have done? ODIN (Slowly) No. We had no…choice. VILI We killed them all. VE And we killed Ymer too. He was sleeping, as usual… (The three raise their spear-sticks and advance warily. Tense, expectant music) ODIN (without pausing) Lying on his back and snoring. We crept up. Crept closer to the sleeping giant. Climbed over his knees and his thighs for hours. In the night we crossed his hairy belly - VILI - and towards dawn we reached his chest. He was almost awake. His snoring was like thunder and we couldn't hear each other speak even when we shouted. Then he began to stir, and each time he moved we tumbled back down him. We'd roped ourselves together, so that we wouldn't get separated. VE Sssh! Can you hear it? (The three stop suddenly. Listen. Over the loudspeakers we hear the beating of an enormous heart) ODIN At last! We were there. We got ready. Counted to three. And then rushed forward! VILI (Shouts) And drove our sticks through his damned heart! (All three stand still and strike fiercely at the floor with the sticks) (YMER'S wild, pitiable howl is heard off-stage. Then he staggers in, the blood literally SPURTING from him. He crosses the stage and goes out again. While we can see him he does not howl. When seen he contents himself with soft whimpering. )