Tag Archives: Eþel

ᛖ

This is the rune for Eh, war horse, letter E. In the Cotton library manuscript called Galba A.ii (burned in a different fire from the one that got the Old English Rune Poem) the name of this rune is spelled eoh. In other manuscripts the name is spelled Eh as it is here, not with an EO at the start. There’s another rune for EO: ᛇ, spelled eoh like it’s a horse but it means a yew tree. This is the Rune Poem catching a vowel shift, from E to EO. This rune gets tangled up in ᛟ as well, Eþel, the rune for Œ. Notice that is not an Œ at the front of ᛟ’s name, it’s an E. ᛟ used to be œþel, but that sound shifted into E from what used to be mostly O sounds. Vowels are shapeshifters. The sound of this one makes us smile.

Carve … More

Stanza 23: Home

ᛟ byþ ofer leof         æghwylcum men.
gif he mot ðær. rihtes         and gerysena on
brucan on bolde         bleadum oftast ᛬᛫

It is beloved to everybody
If we assemble there on what is just and what is proper
Enjoying often inspiration in the hall.

 

 

Translating Eþel

The Rune Poem is sung in a tempo that changes from time to time. You can find the beats and the rests between them in the stresses of the words in each stanza. Some move quickly like the adjacent Hail and Need stanzas. Stand in the hail and you’ll see why it needs a quick stanza. Stand in need and you’ll feel the staccato tempo of a life crashing down. The Home stanza is the last in a string of four stanzas bound together by a change of tempo: Human, The Sea, Ing, and Home. Together they tell a story about Ing who was a goddamned legend. He appears in the adjacent pair to Gift and Home, so we’ll visit Ing soon. For now know that home is where you start from and the end of the story as well. You have nothing else.

In the world of the Rune … More

Rune Casting: Eþel

Has there been an injustice? A lie? Did some ugly thing happen and now everything’s a mess? Go home. Go home right now. Find your happy place. Are you there? Good. Now you can relax and get with your people. Gather them up. Talk it out, ask them what they think is right and what isn’t. You’ll be inspired.

 

ᛟ

O ᛟ, you shapeshifter. Once you signified all O sounds, until you slipped sideways and joined up with E. Twins you were, they spelled you two ways Œþel and Eþel, depending on what you sounded like where they wrote your name, and when. (O Œþel, you were first in your birth order, if conjoined twins have a birth order.) O ᛟ, ᚩ took your O sound away. What can you do with a wordy god? Without O you get confused with ᛖ a lot. Eh, what do you care? You grew up to be a pictograph in your own right. A whole word world you are, doing the job of several letters in just one shape.

 Carve the ᚷ rune. Now put a roof on it. What a gift to have a home.