I was born at uhta, that time just before dawn when the mists roll in across the low hills and, some say, the wihts are abroad.
I had refused to be born, so my sweat-soaked mother had to strain harder than she had with any of my siblings, to push me out. Uhta, being neither dark nor light, and my reluctance to join the world, clinging instead to the otherworld, was the reason that, as I finally made an entrance, Mim-mim spied two creatures watching from the edge of the woods, across the sweetgrass meadow: a heorot, standing firm and sound, with eyes of soft brown and a wulf, eyes dark and ravening.
These were my birth omens.
Of course I didn’t know any of this then, I was too busy objecting to the slaps, taking my first lungfuls of air and expelling them on angry wails.