Tag Archives: TH

ᛞ

D. Voiced alveolar dental stop. You use your voice and soft palate to make the sound, make your breath stop against your teeth. Leave your larynx out of it and you make a T.  D was sometimes spelled with a T in later Old English, and it would occasionally appear as the letter Eth which looks like this: Ð and this: ð. Eth is kind of a cross between a Þ (thorn, TH) and a D. A th sound with a little D flavor. Eventually the Рand Þ became interchangeable leaving the D to stand alone, exiled in wretchedness.

Make a thorn and point it at a reverse thorn. A thorn in a mirror. Let them keep in touch, they are very close.

 

Stanza 3: Thorn

Þ byþ ðearle scearp.         ðegna gehwylcum.
anfengys yfyl         ungemetun reþe.
manna gehwylcun.         ðe him mid resteð ᛬᛫

It is severely sharp for all of the thegns.
Laying hold of it is evil, with unmet cruelty
For anybody who rests with them.

 

Translating Thorn

Let’s worry about the þegna, the thegns. They set up camp at night, prepare food, tend to horses, fires. Get ordered around by el jefe to do every damn thing. They can’t do that themselves? Come on. It’s late. The thegns are tired. They have to be up first and early to get the whole show back on the road. All that work and nervous energy. It’s going to be a battle! They’re wiped out and finding places to sleep. Let’s pause here.

Raise you hand. Have you ever walked right into a bramble of some kind, in broad daylight, and you didn’t see it until the burning tear right into your skin? This is Britain. They have thorns all over the place. Do you live where blackberries grow like a plague upon the land? I do. They hurt. Now, find a place to sleep at night like a tired thegn in the super … 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 Old English word makes it subjunctive: it might be old, maybe it’s old. Or it makes the word a plural adjective. Multiples of old. Olds. Old squared.

Ye Olds Curiosity Shop. In Old English “ye” which looked like “ðe” (there was no Y in Old English) used to be strictly nominative plural. Y’all with me? Then it morphed to personal pronoun: second person dative singular. To you. I say this to you, Olds Curiosity shop. Old2 Curiosity Shop, this is for you.

And. Also. Sometimes “ye” is a conjunction. You’d find it in pairs spelled with one of the letters that became g: Ȝ ȝ or Ᵹ ᵹ. Thats an upper … More

Rune Casting: Thorn

You all right? You seem uncomfortable. Well you should be, with what’s coming to you. You got the Thorn rune. You’ve put yourself into a prickly situation so don’t grab for more or you’ll have an evil time of it. Watch where you sleep too and who with, that’s no bed of roses. Don’t even rest your eyes. You’d better listen to me sharpish, or it will be unmet cruelty for you. If you make this particular bed baby love, you’re going to have to lie in it.

Þ

Thorn survived for ages. That kind of longevity in a dead letter deserves a eulogy. Ye, though Thorn has walked through the valley of the shadow of death it has surely found its way to the great abecedarium in the sky where it may abide in that illustrious dead letter office alongside its companions UI, IO, and EA. Dearest Thorn made it a long time, longer than most, and had a great run, bless its heart. Nettlesome old bastard. Kept showing up to things year after year with its barbed jokes and pointed comments, though it was a giant among letters and always welcome. Thorn, though our days be restlessly marked by the unmet cruelty of your loss, we take great consolation in knowing you sleep amongst the roses.

Though thorn is dead to us as a letter, the Icelandic language still uses it, so it’s really only mostly dead. There’s … More