Tag Archives: The Grave

Translating Eoh

A tree does not show up in the Rune Poem unless it is important. You think they’ll let just any tree grow in these sacred woods? No. These are the god trees. Useful too. The oak grows… More

The Future

You can’t have a society without a collective understanding of time. You can’t. Show me one. Time is the basis of everything: our idea of shared reality, what we think … More

Life and Death

The Rune Poem stanzas Wealth and Human have so much in common they ought to be a matched set, except they already have their own partners, The Grave, and Need. Here are Wealth and Human… More

Moody Joy

The rune carvers prized beaver fur and skin, their teeth made a great necklace found sometimes in the graves of women and children and once around the neck of a dog, and by church decree… More

Stanza 29: The Grave

ᛠ byþ egle eorla gehwylcun.
ðonn fæstlice flæsc onginneþ.
hraw colian hrusan ceosan
blac to gebeddan bleda gedreosaþ.
wynna gewitaþ … More

Translating Ear

Old English uses very few words at a time, but in all the minimalism there’s a massive amount of meaning: often multiple meanings of the same word are intended, black is sometimes… More

How to Dig my Grave

Source a location. Ask yourself, why are you digging my grave? Have you recently murdered me or have I died of natural causes? If murder, you must source both a grave site and a hiding … More

Everything is Temporary

I am so terribly sorry for your loss. I’ll be thinking about you and will light a candle. Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you in your time of grief, while you are… More

How to Die

First, you must find a reason not to live. There exists uncountable reasons but you must choose at least one and try to make it as ineffable as possible so the people you leave behind may… More

X≠Y≠Z: Rune Casting!

Y: This is our future? Ear and Feoh. Death and cattle? Are we going to kill a cow? Are we meeting some rich cattle?

Z: Wealth. It means wealth.

Y: Wealth? Like lots of cows?

X: Portable… More

Rune Casting: Ear

Tell me your future. Tell me, what do you hope will happen before you’re dead? And what is it you are afraid of? Never mind. Doesn’t matter what. The future is not in the what,… More

Alphybettyformed Verbage
A is always for apple. B is for a lot of stuff. Ball, bear, boat, banana, so many B things. Very early we learn from the one to the infinite is but a step.

The Old English Rune Poem is an alphabet book. It looks like an alphabet book, but like a modern alphabet book there’s infinitely more to it, if you look close. Every stanza of the poem describes a letter, a rune. In Old English the word rune means secret. The secret is these letters weren’t just for writing. In secret, when nobody was looking, people could carve the runes into bits of wood and cast lots with them. Find out their fates. Answer a few questions. Solve some problems. They could do this because each stanza of the Rune Poem, gives a little bit of wisdom, a little picture of life, sometimes a warning. Always in the form of a riddle. The Rune Poem is a collection of riddles that could divine the future.

This poem has another secret hidden in its folds that fascinates me. There’s a riddle in this collection of alphabet riddles, deep in its structure. Take the letters, cut them apart from each other, carve them into bits of wood if that helps you, and line them up in a row. Now fold your line in half so number 1 is next to 29, 2 next to 28, etc. Make the pairs and read them together. They match each other. They sing duets about light, renewal, a song of home and exile. A song of the water cycle. A beautiful weapon is one thing but a thorn can really hurt you. Some things are dependable. Everything is temporary. The runes sing these things to themselves in the mirror, duet by duet, until you get to the clue, the key to the secret, number 15 in the middle -- Helix, standing alone all twisted, singing we should twine this poem aound itself and look at it again.

-- Vern Tonkin

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