Ger is a little small. Look at it so teeny: ᛄ. You might not be able to see. It’s bigger now, it grew over time, but the poor thing was only half sized once. Sometimes Ger is carved to look like the rune for Beaver, Ior, ᛡ, making for redundancy and a real identity crisis for sweet little ᛄ, though ᛄ did stand up a little taller to claim a space in manuscripts at least. ᛄ’s got other problems too. It once made a J sound before shifting into a softer palatal G and then ultimately a Y sound represented by Ge, where it seems to have landed, unfortunately sharing the same initial sound of the ᛡ rune as well as its look sometimes. This does lend to a bit of an identity crisis. ᛄ was here first, I’ll have you know, and it’s hard for a small rune like ᛄ to … More
Tag Archives: Thorn
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 Ð and 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.
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
How To Declare War
Congratulations! You are going to war. You might be feeling rather heated at the moment and may be experiencing an urgent desire to get on with the war proper, but first you must declare war. The war declaration belongs to the artistry of war making and mustn’t be ignored, steps ought to be followed from A to Z. There’s no just getting on with it in this alphabet book! Oh no honey pie, you’re not safe here. These things take time and though you may wish to skip the war declaration, common courtesy dictates you must still declare war so those friendly to you will be aware of your war’s existence and then either join in your war or get the hell out of the damn way if they don’t like it. You don’t want their help if that’s how they are going to be about it.
In order to declare war you must determine … More
They’ll Cut You
Let’s worry about the thegns. We’ve worried about the thegns before, but these poor bastards have a lot on their plate. They’re the glam squad for a bunch of divas going to war, and it’s a lot. Have you ever gone to war? You need to bring a lot of stuff. Have you ever hung out with a diva? You need to bring more. Are you a diva? Then you know. Exacting standards. Everything perfect down to the last whatever. Don’t piss off the divas, they’re prickly. They’ll cut you. Just give them what they want, when they want it, or they’ll make your life a living hell. Detail detail detail. The divas didn’t just wake up like that, you think it’s easy to look good on a horse? You think that bow they’re carrying around looks impressive and dangerous just like that on its own? You know the answer. Beauty is pain … 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
How to Grab a Thorn
Don’t. What the hell are you thinking? Don’t grab the thorn. Why would you want to grab a thorn? Why? Are you insane? This is insane. I feel insane thinking about it. Ascertain if you are insane. It’s a thorn. Don’t touch it. Don’t look at it. Keep away from it, evil little sucker. The thorn hates you. And, it’s not just a thorn. It’s lots of thorns. The thorn has friends. And relations. The thorn will gang up and snag on when you least expect. What are you wearing? Is that what you’re wearing? Put some pants on! My God! That thorn is going to whip right across your skin. You won’t see it coming. You’ll be looking at the thorn in front and it’s the one behind will get you. With unmet cruelty. And you want to grab it. Don’t grab it! Don’t go near it. Cover yourself and stay back. God. You … 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
Byþ
Remember your future, what you thought it would be. Put yours in mind, it’s different for different people. You know that, obviously, but I’m not talking about individual people. I mean groups of people, peoples, whole societies of people past and present. They way we think about future and what the rune carvers thought about it is not the same. To find the difference, if you want to know the root and the soul of a culture’s sense of future, get right up close to one specific word, and take an embarrassing long look. Make you both blush. Be. That’s the word. To be. This is the word for reality, and the way this word is treated always reveals a culture’s idea of temporality, and so much more. Be means existence, which precedes essence so some philosophers say, that we are neither nature nor nurture, but something foundational to both. This is true for people … More
