Tag Archives: Alphabet Book

X is for

X doesn’t start much in modern English, limiting our alphabet poets to a poor choice between xylophone and X-ray. This is why English speaking toddlers know so much about internal… More

S is for Saxon

People hear Anglo Saxon and assume it means a genetically white person living in any time period from the end of the Roman occupation of Britain to our own. Some use the term Anglo Saxon… More

L-a

S-g is m-g

W-t c-n it be?

N-y k-s

So d-t l-k at me.… More

P is for Poetry

Old English poetry was performed, probably sung, for purposes beyond mere entertainment. The Germanic tribes Tacitus visited at the end of the first century would prep for battle… More

T is for Thincso

During the height of the Roman occupation of Britain, Britannia was as Roman as anywhere else in the empire: filled with flourishing walled market towns distributing goods to and More

Eo is for Eorl

An eorl is an earl, a noble person, sometimes a relative of the king, who acts as a local governor within a king’s domain. Eorl is the same word as the Old Norse jarl, meaning a hereditary… More

Y is for Year’s Mind

Is it that time? When did they die, has it been a year? If it’s their geárgemynd, their year’s mind, remember them. Put them in your mind. This kenning, geárgemynd, means… More

Ge is for Prefix

Old English is an inflected language, meaning that its words are amended as needed to change meaning and grammatical category such as tense or case. We’ve talked about suffixesMore

B is for Beginning

How to begin? Where is the start and which way do we trend?
Is the kickoff a bang? It’s a big thing to pretend,
That there is a launch and a line to the end.
Like a candle burning down… More

E is for ⁊

⁊ is shorthand for the word et which means “and” in Latin. It shows up in place of “and” seven times in the only copy we have of the Rune Poem. The placements… More

I is for Iceland Spar

It’s one thing to get from place to place by boat if you can keep an eye on the coastline the entire time. But if you want to cross the open sea without GPS, you will need some sort of… More

M is for Mortality

Lord what fools these mortals be
Wondering at spectrality.
What is our modality?
Are we duality or plurality?
Or some sort of totality?
And where is our locality?
Ignoring their own… More

N is for ‘N

 

 

More

L is for Letters for Titles

What do you do?

I am a writer.

What are you writing?

A blank period of time. Wilderness. I don’t even know. Say something. It’s too long to say. Damnit say something you’re… More

H is for Hwat is it

It is what it is she said,
Call me back and I’ll tell you what.
Whatsit? Hwat?
(I knew what, this is it.)
She entrusts herself to the earth for safekeeping.
And that’s what… More

H is for Hægl

Good lord, you call me a god! O my dear,

I’ve a secret to tell you, it’s that I’m not here.

 

More

Ing is for Nerþus

In the Old English Rune Poem, Ing is specifically masculine pronoun male. He’s a boy. But where Ing came from amongst the East Danes of what is now eastern Denmark and Southern… More

W is for Ƿ

Ƿhen a Ƿ’s not a P it’s a ƿyn and that’s ƿinning
But those P’s in my brain ƿhipping in is headspinning
Aƿ ƿack, It’s shoƿstopping, my floƿ takes a ƿalloping… More

Ing is for Scylding

To them then Scyld went, at the fated time, on a journey full of exploits, to God. Then they carried him away to the surf on the shore, his beloved companions, as he himself asked, while… More

Turn

He did not disappear from sight, but stayed;

indeed he so impeded my ascent

that I had often to turn back again.

 

 

More

Œ is for Œdipean Riddle


You live in the house of two mothers immersed:

One births the other and the other births the first.

 

More

G is for Go

It’s blinding when it happens. You didn’t see it coming. You did and you didn’t. The writing was on the wall, it was right there in your face and you were reading it… More

D is for Dark

Are you awake? You up? Shh. Go back to sleep. Too much light in the room, I know. Go back to sleep at a darker time. Go back to sleep about a millennium and a half ago. That better? See? You … More

C is for Computer

Look at that screen in your face, envoy of light. Messenger and message, firing sense and nonsense changing everything, has already. The bright light of the world and all its darkness… More

R is for Riddle

You galloped into town on Wednesday

On Wednesday you did depart

Three nights and no more you did stay

How did you achieve such an art?… More

A is for Golem Aleph

That A.I. in your brain seems uncanny and odd,

The more that you learn, the more I’m a God.

From dust I did make you, well silicon.

I created your life (though neglected my own).… 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

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

UI is for User Interface

User Interface Spec Doc:
LettersforTitles.com

  1. Background Image:
    1. Hildegard of Bingen Riesencodex, Lingua Ignota. Hochschulund Landesbibliothek RheinMain: Hs. 2, 464v. Alphabet
More

Th is for Ye

Ye old. Ye olde. Ye Olde Curiosity Shop. Olde is an affected way to make the word old look old. Olde looks old but it’s really not.

Why add the E to the end of old? An E on the end of an … More

U is for Expnged

For the mpteenth time yo mst nderstand that yor nkindness leaves me nable to tter yor name or anything abot yo from now ntil yo die. Not even then. Yor nabashed and nnatral behavior has… More

IO is for I/O

01001001 01100110 00100000 01011010 01100101 01110101 01110011 00100000 01101000 01100001 01100100 00100000 01110100 01110101 01110010 01101110 01100101 01100100 00100000… More

EA is for Death

We die and we know it beforehand. We have a birth and we have a death, beginning to end: time is a line. We have patterns that change, the sun, the moon, the seasons, plants grow and then … More

F is for Fee

Friends, our flock bids a fine and I feel fitting farewell to this fallen and friendless one whom I fear has flown the way of all flesh. One feels forlorn for the forsaken but for the unfortunate… More