Turn

He did not disappear from sight, but stayed;

indeed he so impeded my ascent

that I had often to turn back again.

Hwat ~ About, Alphabet Book, Dante Alighieri, Inferno, Letters for Titles, Old English, Rune Poem, Vern Tonkin ~

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Stanza 23: Home →

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Hwat

Axis Mundi

By Land and By Sea

Everything is Temporary

Fate

Light

Moody Joy

Prosperity

Sitting to Battle

The Water Cycle

The Future

They'll Cut You

Trust

Twist

War and Peace

You Have Nothing Else

Boiling bloody blisters.

Stanza 15: Helix

ᛉ seccard hæfþ oftust on fenne. wexeð on wature. wundaþ grimme. blode breneð beorna gehwylcne ðe...
Sedges have edges, rushes are round, grasses have knees that bend to the ground.

Translating Eolhx

This is a stanza about a plant; this is clear from the context and from the word secg, which means a sedge or reed. It also m...
Fifteen yesterday. Curious, fifteenth of the month too.

How to See the Pair in the Middle

The rune carvers thought in pairs. They had a whole pronoun classification for the two that are also one, so it is no surpris...
When it swooped me in its undulations, the spiraling began, and this spiral was a labyrinth. There was no vault and no bottom, no walls and no return. But there were themes repeating themselves with exactitude.

Loop
In that pure labyrinth you'll find your own reflection. Once again let us discard the iron coin, which is a magic mirror also. Its reverse is no one, nothing, shadow, blindness. You are that. The pair of iron faces fashions a single echo.

Twist

The answer to this stanza riddle is the word eolhx, meaning unclear. We know this is the name of the rune because this word a...
A fiend in hell was the grim spirt named Grendel, famous boundary walker, he who held the swamp and fen as his fastness. The homeland of a race of monsters the unblessed man guarded for a time.

Fen

Turn back, don't you see? Look where you are. Look at that evil plant spiraling all around this place, sharp, dangerous, don'...
The letter X was made to vex.

X is for

X doesn't start much in modern English, limiting our alphabet poets to a poor choice between xylophone and X-ray. This is why...
Before I free myself from this abyss, master, I said when I had stood up straight, tell me enough to see I don't mistake: Where is the ice? And how is he so placed head downward? Tell me, too, how has the sun in so few hours gone from night to morning? And he to me: You still believe you are north of the center, where I grasped the hair of the damned worm who pierces through the world. And you were there as long as I descended; but when I turned, that's when you passed the point to which, from every part, all weights are drawn.

Rune Casting: Eolhx

You'll be mired in it. You'll twist yourself up trying to get out of a quagmire and end up bogged down in quicksand. Sinking....
The luxurious Exeter texting exes exit faux existence at the exact apex of exaltation: exeunt!

ᛉ

Solve for X. X = a stand in for consonant clusters: sounds like ks for word endings and when it appears after stressed vowels...
The game of the gods. Infinite possibilities. A very ancient invention.

Stanza 14: The Game

ᛈ byþ symble plega. and hlehter wlancum ðar wigan sittaþ on beor sele bliþe æt somne ᛬᛫ It is a ...
How do you bathe a fish?

Stanza 16: Sun

ᛋ semannum symble biþ on hiht ðonn hi hine feriaþ ofer fisces beþ oþ hibrim hengest bringeþ to la...
Daybreak was vanquishing the dark's last hour, which fled before it: in the distance I could recognize the trembling of the sea.

Translating Sigel

The answer to this riddle is the sun, though when you read it it could be something else related to seafaring. Semannum, more...
And the noble wife gave a cup to the first East Dane, guardian of the home, bade him bliss at the beer taking. Loved by the people, he with pleasure received the feast and hall cup, the victorious king.

Translating Peorð

Nobody knows what this is for certain. The only time we ever see the word peorð in Old English is in lists of rune names, so ...
He had bought a large map representing the sea, without the least vestige of land: and the crew were much pleased when they found it to be a map they could all understand.

How to Navigate by the Sun

I do not advise navigating by the sun. It's a mathematical mess with all parts in motion, the sun, the sea, you. Pure chaos. ...

© 2023 -- by Vern Tonkin