Translating the poem "All hail the young mage"

Kangassk helped to find and defeat a hostile magical creature that terrorised a little town, Iven. A local singer wrote a song for him as a sign of gratitude. Several of his new friends sang it together making the poor guy blush.

It’s a simple song, a friend-to-friend gift, not a masterpiece, but a sincere little thing. Its mood is lighthearted and happy.

This song is important to the plot not just for sentimental reasons. It will appear again, in book two, playing a little role of its own.

Since it’s not written by a professional singer, it’s a bit blurry and has a lot of unnecessary decorative elements that don’t matter much and can be added/removed as you see fit. The only things that should stay are - Kangassk
- clear skies above Iven (because the hostile creature had a power over winds)
- soothstone

Some explanations that may help:
Del-Emer is a surname all citizens of Aren-castell have (the founders of the city were Del and Emer)
“Warrior of dunes” just means that he is from a desert region. It doesn’t matter much.
They say that he deserves to wear a soothstone because you need a very good reason to wear one in the North where it’s a crime. Kangassk has a special license from one of the worldholders to wear one. So it’s like “Hey! You really do deserve it!”

Original Russian text:

Кангасск Дэлэмэр!
Славься, юный маг!
Мы песню тебе поём.
Пусть этот огонь
Никогда Зима
Не скроет в сердце твоём.
Пусть этот огонь,
Когда тьма кругом,
Сияет тебе в ночи,
Пусть будет с тобою,
Когда с врагом
Ты снова скрестишь мечи.

Кангасск Дэлэмэр!
Славься, воин дюн!
Велики твои дела.
Какая звезда,
Того, кто так юн,
Тернистым путем вела?

Над Ивеном вновь
Небеса чисты –
Не ждать нам беды с небес.
Никто другой,
Достоин лишь ты
Носить на груди харуспекс.


My rough translation:

All hail the young mage
Kangassk Del-Emer!
Our song is for you.
May the fire in your heart
Never die,
Shining through the winter.
May this fire
Light your way
When the darkness surrounds you.
May it be with you
When you cross blades
With an enemy again.

All hail Kangassk Del-Emer,
The warrior of dunes!
Great are your deeds.
Which star
Leads the one
So young by a thorny path?

Skies above Iven
Are clear again,
No threat lives there anymore.
Like no one else
You deserve to wear
A soothstone
Next to your heart.


---

Alan Jackson's translation and comments:

I chose a metre which has a grandiose feel, but doesn’t fit any of the obvious tunes, as far as I know. You suggested that there was no need to stay too near the Russian, but in fact it seems to me to have come out as quite a close translation. To reflect the rustic, slightly amateur origin of the song, I have used ‘thou’, and I have included a few ‘poetic’ forms –ne’er, ‘gainst, alway, lucent.

Hail, Kangassk Del-Emer!
Hail the young mage!
Our song we sing to thy great praise!
May ne’er chill winter touch
Thy brave heart’s fire
May nothing quench it all thy days!

Hail Kangassk Del-Emer!
May thy heart’s fire
E’er light thy path through every dark!
Alway its flame blaze forth
‘Gainst all thy foes
Consume their rage with a single spark!

Hail Kangassk Del-Emer!
Sword of the sands!
Each deed, each word thy greatness showed!
What lucent star has drawn
So young, so great
A mage by such a thorny road?

Hail Kangassk Del-Emer!
Over Iven
The skies are clear, and by thine hand!
No heart but thine alone
The true right has
To wear a soothstone in this land!

Jump to another poem:

About the project:
My scifi and fantasy novels have a lot of poems in them that can not be removed without destroying the plot. Alas, my English in not good enough for translating poetry. Alan Jackson helps me translate the poems. It makes the translation of my novels possible.