Tag Archives: UI

Stanza 27: Bow

ᚣ byþ æþelinga         ⁊ eorla gehwæs.
wyn and wyrþmynd.         byþ on wicge fæger.
fæstlic on færelde.         fyrdgeatewa sum ᛬᛫

It is for the prince and the noble
Whose joy and mark of distinction is to look good on a horse
Fixedly on the expedition, some trappings of war.

Translating Yr

In Old English yr means only the name for this rune. A bow is a guess, a bow made out of yew. In Old Norse yr means the yew tree. The Icelandic Rune Poem says yr is “bent bow and brittle iron, and Farbauti (a giant) of the arrow.” Yew Bows from Britain were prized all over Europe, so I think a yew bow as an answer to this riddle makes the most sense from the minimal context we have. But in Old English yew is spelled eoh, so this rune could be describing something else. Some think this stanza describes a horn or a saddle bow or buckle. Whatever yr was, it was something to see. This is what this stanza is all about. Being something to see. Looking good on a horse. That’s sexy. Nobody wants to look bad on a horse.

This rune is about the elite. They could … More

UI is for User Interface

User Interface Spec Doc:
LettersforTitles.com

  1. Background Image:
    1. Hildegard of Bingen Riesencodex, Lingua Ignota. Hochschulund Landesbibliothek RheinMain: Hs. 2, 464v. Alphabet code page of Hildegard of Bingen’s invented language. Saint Hildegard: Writer, composer, mystic, psychic to the stars. People like Frederick Barbarosa, Eleanore of Aquataine. Popes. Henry II of England. People with plenty of secrets. Want to keep a secret? Invent your own language and write it with your own alphabet.
  2. Title:
    1. Title Image: St. Hugh’s Bible, Bodleian Library MS. Auct. E. inf. 1066r. Detail. Letter L forming the word Locutusq: speech. A plant sprouting from a lion’s mouth forming three branches, two with faces of another lion and a person, staring back at it. The third branch will flower next. Watch your words, they’ll grow and bite you later. Whatever you say will reflect yourself and others back to you. Words you speak take on lives of their own. Your
… More

Rune Casting: Yr

Look at you, you’re a gorgeous one. Hello. Such a pleasure to see you looking so impressive today. You’re good for looking at, is this the rune you picked? Yr? It looks good on you. Where’d you get it? Goes with your eyes. Sparkling, shining, scowling some, but you’re in a hurry. I get it. Hold your horses diva. Give us a chance to see you in all your gloriousness, before you set off. You are going places and you’ll impress when you get there. Your time is coming so you’d better bring it. You look ready for this fight. When you stay ready you don’t have to get ready and you look fierce. You will be remembered. You will be worth remembering.

 

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Say something. Go ahead, you heard me, say it and listen to yourself. Now say it about a hundred years ago. Hear it? You can hear it. Different. Speech sounds change. Accents change. You’ve changed. You think you sound the same but go back home after some distance and they’ll tell you different. And they’ll tell it to you differently. English has changed, big time, my God it’s different. It’s old. It’s medieval. Let’s think of a famous medieval person, to see how old. Somebody with a real mark of distinction. Dante. Dante Aligheri. He finished writing the Divine Comedy in 1320. He’s really really old, hundreds of years. Think of this, in this current moment we are closer in years to Dante than he was to the start of Old English. And from the Rune Poem to us he’s in the middle of the path of life. Not the runes, they’re even older, the … More