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Sunday, February 21, 2010

Runa


The Kylver stone


The Negau helmet


Runes. A controversial topic within reconstructionist circles, but also one of the more obvious aspects of the Norse/Germanic cultural heritage. We have a few known facts that are verified by archaeology and the historical record.



  • There are three basic known systems that exist; the Norse (or Viking) Futhark consisting of 16 runes, the common Germanic Futhark of 24 runes, and the Anglo/Northumbrian Futhorc of 28-33 runes.


  • The earliest runic inscription we have is (potentially) the Meldorf brooch (dated 50 C.E.), although some scholars argue that it is a north italic rather than germanic inscription. An earlier artifact, the Negau helmet, uses definite North Italic characters which are strong candidates for ancestors of the runes.


  • The earliest ordered Futhark (runes in f-o order) is the Kylver stone (dated to 400 C.E.) This stone was placed in a grave in such a fashion that the inscription faced inward.


  • The Runes were used as a system of writing and magic by the early Germans and Scandinavians.


  • Each rune had a vocal sound and a concept associated with it.


  • Runes continued in use as a form of magic in Iceland up to at least up to the late 1500s (the Galdrabok, composed around 1580)


  • Runes continued to be used for communication until at least the 1630s (Gustav Adolf used them for coded communications during the Thirty years war in Germany).


  • Symbols similar to runes have been found as petroglyphs from Neolithic Spain to Neolithic Scandinavia.


  • Cornelius Tacitus, in Germania, refers to a Germanic practice of divination by marking symbols on slips of wood and casting them on a cloth.


  • The Old English Rune Poem (Cottonian Ms Otho Bx) is dated to around 1000 C.E.


  • The Old Norse Rune Poem is from Olaus Wormius' Danica Literatura Antiquissima and is dated to around 1200 C.E.


  • The Old Icelandic Rune Poem is from four manuscripts in the Arnamagnean library in Copenhagen, dated to around 1400 C.E.


  • Runes were carved in wood, bone, stone, scratched on leather, and written on bark strips.




  • These are undisputed facts, verifiable by anyone with a scholarly bent and a willingness to perform minimal research. Now we move into the territory of speculation and the arguable.

    I believe the Runes to be a complete system of spiritual technology usable for meditation, prayer, magic and personal enlightenment. I see them as the direct gift of the god Odin to mankind, usable by any who have the will and tenacity to learn them.

    The word rune (Old Norse Runar, Old High German Rune, Finnish Runo) has meanings in most Northern European languages of secret, mystery, or whisper. Other meanings are song, incantation, spell, and riddle. So what then is a mystery in an esoteric sense?

    Examples of spiritual or religous mysteries abound in world cultures. The Roman Catholics have the Mysteries of the Rosary. The Greeks had the mystery cults of Orpheus and Demeter. The Romans and Persians had their Mithraic mysteries. All of these mysteries share a common thread, that of Gnosis, or direct experience of divinity as a result of meditation, prayer, or ritual. One of the functions I attribute to the Runes is as foci for meditation on particular topics, not unlike a Buddhist mantra, a Zen koan, a Hindu mandala, or a Byzantine icon.

    Here is my meditation technique for this. My sources are varied, and some I honestly do not remember, but, as Newton said, if I seem to see farther than others, it is only because I stand on the shoulders of giants.

    I begin with a rune. Any rune will suffice, but for this example I will use Fehu, the first. The OERP says 'Feoh is a comfort to all men, yet must every man bestow it freely, if he wish to gain honor, in the sight of the lord'. The OIRP says 'Fe (money) is strife among kinsmen, the fire of the sea, and the path of the serpent'. The ONRP says 'Fe (money) causes strife among kinsmen, the wolf is raised in the woods'.

    A few notes. The OE word for lord, 'Dryhten' refers to high nobility (kings or earls) and the christian ggod. In the pre-conversion period it was most likely a heiti (byname) for the deity Freyr, in my opinion. In Anglo-Saxon feoh refers to cattle, where in Old Norse fe is money. So, on the surface , we are referring to mobile, or transferrable, wealth. (Wealth, btw, is an unchanged A-S word in our language with the original meaning of 'that which brings good' (weal).) Also we have implications of the strife that can be triggered by unshared wealth.

    Then I visualise the rune. It's shape, color, etc. then I say 'Feoh, fe, fehu, wealth is strife among kinsmen, the fire of the sea, and the path of the serpent. Feoh, fe fehu, wealth causes strife among kinsmen, the wolf is raised in the woods. Feoh, fe, fehu, wealth is a comfort to all men, but every man should bestow it freely if he wishes to gain honor in the sight of freyr'.

    I repeat this as long as seems appropriate, remembering any insights gained as I do so. By internalizing these mysteries, I begin to see them around me, so that my spiritual practice becomes not only immanent (internal), but also emanent (radiating outward to me from the universe, and outward from me to the universe).