ᚷ gumena byþ gleng and herenys.
wraþu ⁊ wyrþscype ⁊ wræcna gehwam
ar and ætwist ðe byþ oþra leas ᛬᛫
For the people it is ornament and praise
Support and honor, and for those wretched in exile
Mercy and sustenance. You have nothing else.
Gift giving was a big deal to the people of the Rune Poem. It was everything. They gave everything. It could be food or goods, but they loved ornament and anything old especially: gilded, edged with silver, blinding shiny, these were the best gifts, but it wasn’t about the bling so much as the message. What you give is what you’re worth and what you will be remembered for. Everybody wants to be worth something and everybody wants to be remembered, it’s the only permanent thing in a world where every single thing is temporary. We are each other’s immortality on earth through the memories we lay down in other people, it’s the only way to live, so by God you will remember me.
With the gift comes gleng, which means both ornament and honor, and as is typical in such cases, it’s the intangible half of this pair that’s worth more. It … More
Shoved out of the nest. Exiled in wretchedness. You have nothing else. You are not alone though, you’ll survive. Just. You have help coming to sustain you, a mercy, a gift. Help is the gift, and what a gift. Nothing more precious than generosity. Accept it now, you’ll use it later.
O ᚷ, you shapeshifter. You have a completely different character depending on whom you are with. Well we all know somebody like that. Chum up to the back vowels (back of tongue and soft palate, O, U) and guess what, you become great and good like a god. Put you with the front vowels (closer to your teeth, I, E) and you soften up, gentle like a Y or a J. O ᚷ, your name gifu means gift, but doesn’t sound like it. It sounds more like what Y is doing in year. Yifu.
Carve a diagonal line and cross it. Lines in two directions.
