Category Archives: Axis Mundi

Stanza 4: God

ᚩ byþ ordfruma. ælcre spræce.
wisdomes wraþu. and witena frofur.
and eorla gehwam. eadnys and to hiht ᛬᛫

It is the source of every speech,
The support of … More

Stanza 26: Ash

ᚫ biþ ofer heah. eldum dyre.
stiþ on staþule . stede rihte hylt.
ðeah him feohtan on firas monige ᛬᛫

It is very tall, dear to the elders
Firm in its foundations… More

Translating Æsc

The ash tree is oferheah. Over-high. Tall. And it grows from nothing: the smallest sapling can become something oferheah, massive, with root systems that are fairly shallow, but… More

Translating Os

Os means God, non specified, though this stanza might be talking about a specific one. There are other specific gods in the Rune Poem. Tiw is here. So is Ing. We don’t know much … More

How to Talk to God

First of all shush! Shh. You talk too much. You need to listen more. Who do you think you are? You’re not God. You are about to talk to somebody who is God and who is not chatty. So shush.… More

Æ is for George William Russell

George William Russell, Irish legend in a crowded field, once published something under the pseudonym Æon but the printer cut off the last two letters and Æ liked the result. He did… More

Speech Bearer

Reordberend the tree called me,
It says I am a speechbearer.
It thinks I am an odd little tree,
A small beech or confused shrub in error.

It looks to me, I said to this tree
That you’re… More

Truth

Did you know that tree means truth? Well it does, honestly, let me be the first to tell you so you know it’s true. The Old English word treow means both tree and truth. Lots of Old… More

Axis Mundi

Archaeologists in their digging and dating trace the oldest runic alphabet back to the late second century. The oldest rune carvings are often of the alphabet itself, carved in order.… More

The Ogam Ash Tree

Ogam, spelled Ogham in modern Irish, is an Old Irish alphabet, it was possibly a cryptographic alphabet like the runic ones, and it may have had its own sign language and musical notation.… More

Shh

… More

O is for Apostrophe

There are three kinds of apostrophes, grammatical don’t you know, botanical (when bits of protoplasm and such gather on plant cell walls adjacent to other plant cell walls,… More

X≠Y≠Z: How to Punch a Tree

X: The sun’s going down.

Y: Wait, how do I run?

X: Control W, no hold it down.

Z: Don’t lose my stuff.

Y: How would I lose your stuff? Wait, I’m stuck. Where am I? Is this… More

Alphybettyformed Verbage
A is always for apple. B is for a lot of stuff. Ball, bear, boat, banana, so many B things. Very early we learn from the one to the infinite is but a step.

The Old English Rune Poem is an alphabet book. It looks like an alphabet book, but like a modern alphabet book there’s infinitely more to it, if you look close. Every stanza of the poem describes a letter, a rune. In Old English the word rune means secret. The secret is these letters weren’t just for writing. In secret, when nobody was looking, people could carve the runes into bits of wood and cast lots with them. Find out their fates. Answer a few questions. Solve some problems. They could do this because each stanza of the Rune Poem, gives a little bit of wisdom, a little picture of life, sometimes a warning. Always in the form of a riddle. The Rune Poem is a collection of riddles that could divine the future.

This poem has another secret hidden in its folds that fascinates me. There’s a riddle in this collection of alphabet riddles, deep in its structure. Take the letters, cut them apart from each other, carve them into bits of wood if that helps you, and line them up in a row. Now fold your line in half so number 1 is next to 29, 2 next to 28, etc. Make the pairs and read them together. They match each other. They sing duets about light, renewal, a song of home and exile. A song of the water cycle. A beautiful weapon is one thing but a thorn can really hurt you. Some things are dependable. Everything is temporary. The runes sing these things to themselves in the mirror, duet by duet, until you get to the clue, the key to the secret, number 15 in the middle -- Helix, standing alone all twisted, singing we should twine this poem aound itself and look at it again.

-- Vern Tonkin

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