Walhall of a Mess – Part Dieu

Previously on Walhall of a Mess :-

Walhall of a Mess

Women. Can’t live with them, can’t smite the bejesus out of them.

Normally, I’m no misogynist. I like the ladies – I’m a lover AND a fighter, after all – but I’ve been drowning in a tsunami of estrogen all day here.

First off, Fricka, the trouble-and-strife, is back on her soapbox. Pack the bags, we’re going on a guilt trip. Again. What the hell was I thinking when I married that one? I should start calling her Fünf-Rosse, because all I ever get from her is “Nag, nag, nag, nag, nag!”

On today’s menu? My earthly children, the Wälsung twins. Obviously they’re not Fricka’s, as, to best of my knowledge, the frigid one doesn’t actually possess a vagina. Just a vicious tongue.

Remember my great plan for defeating Alberich and his damned curse? The cool-as-f**k-dead-guy-army? Well I hit a snag. Fafner (the giant sociopath who killed his brother and made off with the Ring and the gold) has gone all Hobbit/Game of Thrones and turned himself into a dragon to, literally, sit on his Ring all day. As she-who-will-not-be-ignored pointed out, I can’t simply just kill him because I’m legally bound to honour the gold as payment for our Valhalla contract.

Plan B it is then. An independent contractor/hero would have to do my dirty work for me. So, knowing that Fricka was never going to put out, I set off into the world to beget me a hero. And some action. But mostly a hero.

After plenty of arduous practice, I fathered a pair of twins, Siegmund and Sieglinde. (Still wish I’d gone with Luke and Leia, but their mother was having none of it.) To protect them from the Dark Side of the Force Alberich, I separated them at birth. Siggy got the upbringing from hell to toughen him up a bit, and his sister was married off to a violent brute called Hunding. I left a lightsaber magic sword for Siggy stuck in a tree Excalibur-style and arranged for the kiddies to find each other again. Evidently they were pretty happy to be reunited as they immediately started banging the shit out of each other.

And that’s where Fricka’s meddling comes in. Apparently she’s made up some rules about marriage that Siegmund has screwed up by diddling his sister, and now I have to let Hunding kill Siegmund to make things all pretty again. No hero-son and no ring for me. Back to the drawing board. Again.

So I give my number one daughter the task of making sure Siegmund cops it in order to keep the ball-and-chain happy. Brünnhilde, man, I tell you, she was always my favourite. That hippy-hottie Erda did us right proud there.

Back in the day that little kid was a real badass. Chip off the old block. When we went hunting for heroes, she’d arrange the most hilarious battles. Irish bars were her favourite. She’d whisper in a guy’s ear, and next thing you know, all hell has broken loose and seventy drunken Paddys are trying to rip each others’ guts out over a pint of Guinness. Best ever was when she dropped a twopenny piece into the middle of a crowded Glasgow pub. It was like watching sharks in a feeding frenzy. Rumour has it that copper wire was invented that day. Afterwards we’d take the best scrappers back home to Valhalla to join the dead-guy army. Good times.

Of course that was before she went all “Cosmo” on me. Bloody teenagers. Now it’s nothing but wall-to-wall relationships, horoscopes and “10 ways to emasculate your father”. She’s become wilful, stubborn, and contrary. Turn left, you say, she goes right. Salt’n’vinegar, you say. She gets cheese’n’onion. It’s enough to drive a man to drink. Just don’t ask her to buy it for you or you’ll end up with Coors Light. Gah!

And that bloody horse of hers. Do you know how many of those things she gets through? This is the third one I’ve had to boil down for glue this week. Had to get rid of the last one because “it’s the size of Valhalla”. She’s immortal. Can leap buildings in a single bound. Can defeat an entire army single-handed. Can’t reverse park. Useless.

Anyway, after I had to step in myself to let Hunding kill Siggy, Brünnhilde took off with his pregnant sister. Watching your boy get killed doesn’t exactly put you in the best of moods. I crushed Hunding without moment’s thought and took of after them.

Eventually, after much dramatic stomping around, I found Brünnhilde hiding amongst the rest of my Cosmo-reading brood of Valkyries. Please don’t ask me what all their names are. Who the hell knows? I can never remember. If I’m honest, I got bored and just stuck a bunch of meaningless words in a jar and picked out random pairs – Brünnterfle is one, I think… Grimgreersle?.. Whatever.

So I’m so freaking pissed at Brünnhilde now, I can’t even think of a decent punishment. You know that way women push your buttons until you’re so incandescent with rage you can’t even speak coherently? That. Eventually I get so fed up listening to how it’s all my fault, and that she was only doing what I really wanted to… blah, blah, blah…that I put her to sleep.

On a mountaintop. In a ring of fire.

Well, she’s still my wee girl, after all. I don’t want just any old Tom, Dick, or Harry to get his filthy mitts on her.

Though I pity the poor sod who does.