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 medicine. To branch out a bit sometimes our abecedarists will pick a short word ending in or containing X, because here we have options like axe and fox, words whose spellings have not changed since the time of the Rune Poem. In Old English, X starts no words, nothing, and it ends only a very few. This posed a conundrum for the Rune Poem poet as the runes came before the poem, and one of them signified the letter X. This is one of the clues we have that the runes might have originated with the Etruscans: the Etruscan X looks identical to the Old English rune for X: ᛉ. X is in the mix, so they had to find a word to represent it. … More
Tag Archives: Edward Gorey
Rune Casting: Eolhx
You’ll be mired in it. You’ll twist yourself up trying to get out of a quagmire and end up bogged down in quicksand. Sinking. Don’t grab over your head for something to pull yourself out with, that’s a sharp edged sword rotating just above. Turn around, you are facing the wrong direction. See that? There’s your path out. Go back the way you came and see it all again from the other side.
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 he ruled with words, friend of the Scyldings. The beloved first of his land long had possession. There near to harbor stood a ringed prow, icy and ready to set out, a prince’s vessel. Then laid down the beloved chief, the giver of rings, on the ship’s bosom famous by its mast. Of treasure there was much, ornaments brought from distant parts. I had not heard of a ship more beautifully adorned with war weapons and battle dress, with blades and armor. For him, on his body lay a multitude of treasures, that with him must into the flood’s possession, far depart. They provided him with no lesser gifts than the people’s treasures, then those did, who at his … More
How to Banish Family
You can cut just about anybody out of your life. You already have, cut them dead. You’ve filled graveyards of disconnections. Good.
Regrettably you have always felt you cannot jettison a family member just like that. That you are in fact stuck with your people forever. Not so! It is indeed possible to rid yourself of any inconvenient relative however close, doesn’t matter who, and as soon as you like too, you need not wait for the right moment or a catalyst. Do it now! Don’t put off for tomorrow what you can do today, as the esteemed alphabet reformer Benjamin Franklin has it, and though he failed to exile the letters C, J, Q, W, X, or Y from the family, he was successfully estranged from several of his own close relations, so he ought to know and would be delighted to tell you, were he still speaking to you, that procrastination is the … More
