kviðmágar

Það er hræðilegt orð.
Nei, það er stórskemmtilegt orð!
Nei, það er hræðilegt. Karlmaður sem notar slíkt orð er hræðilegur.
Vísst er karlmenn sem nota það karlrembur og algörir skíthælir, en orðið sjálft er með þeim skemmtilegstu í málinu.
...


Kviðmágur is a terribly clever word if you like that sort of thing. It is a way of referring in a comradely way to those who have lain with the same woman you have, as if they were, by the mere act of doing so, comrades. I like that sort of thing if what you mean by that sort of thing is clever words, but that is not what I mean. It is a word for men who, unable to feel real affinity with women, do all they can to claim kinship with each other -- and they can have it, for I claim no kinship with them.


But how much kinship can I deny having with those many others who love what I love? So many have loved the North, and so many of them have been hateful. Even W. H. Auden, who laughed at the Nazis abroad in their mythologized Eisland, at home wrote of seams of lead vanishing down into the Jew Limestone. One shouldn't take offense: that is just what it is called, like the Whin Sill Limestone, the Tynebottom Limestone, and the rest -- all of them merely names. But kviðmágur is just a word, too, and (you might say) there is no other way to call that relation.

Oh, but, still ... shouldn't a poet be able to come up with something?