Runic Wednesdays - Storytelling

In an effort to get back into the swing of regular posting, I have decided that Wednesdays shall now be dedicated to posts about the Runes of the Elder Futhark.  I'll do a Rune of the Week, discussing the symbolic meanings as well as my own way of interpreting them in a casting.  This may interest no one, but it does me, and anything that gets me fired up about writing again is more than welcome to stay and play.

To start things off, I thought I'd share a short piece I wrote several years ago with the intent of using it in a book about my approach to the Runes.  I may still, but I'm trying not to force myself to think strictly in terms of books these days, and it seems a shame for this story to gather dust in a lonely My Documents folder. 

Therefore, I give you,

Odin's Tale, based on the Runatal section of the Havamal, the mythological account of the origin of the Runes.

Nine days, and nine nights, and the wind howled and shook the limbs above me like the bones of a skeleton, rattling, rattling. Beyond the canopy of bare branches there was only darkness and cold; the color had been leached from the world, then the world had been leached from my sight. Nine days, nine nights, and at last I was alone, all life faded from view, myself with only myself, and the eternal presence of the Great Tree at my back. 

I hung, swaying, no more than another branch, so high above the Earth that its green valleys and white shores could have been nothing more than the fevered dream of a madman--for madness, surely, had driven me here, and madness waited with its jaws agape, far below, in a dark and terrifying chasm where even the Valkyries feared to tread.

Nine days…nine nights…and at last words and time and all the pursuits of the gods lost their meaning. Pain at first drove all rational thought from me, but soon it too faded, the stench of my own blood carried away on the wind. No wound now could return me to the world; I hung, and drifted, a thread on the hem of wisdom, a leaf on the tree of Wyrd.

Shape and form bled together with the endless motion, back and forth, back and forth, a creaking rope and the rustle of leaves that grew, and died, and grew again, all in the length of a breath. All seasons and all moments were as one to the Great Tree; a thousand thousand’s years could go by, and it would stand, roots in the earth, branches in the heavens, bridging all the worlds, as I hung, swaying, no more than another branch.

I had not slept; I had taken no food and no water, and for an ordinary mortal this ordeal would have meant death days ago. In all my travels, after so many battles won and lost and so much death and life renewed, I had learned one thing that could ensure victory no matter how bleak the outlook: patience.

So it was with patience that I looked up, idle-minded and only half awake, up into the twisted and woven branches that embraced the whole of Creation and would until the twilight of the universe. Left, and right, up, and down, shifting in and out of patterns…a lattice of good, living wood, speaking its wordless language to a captive audience who could not hear it.

And yet…

Words had no meaning when there was no one to speak with; now, it seemed, there was, and I was unable understand. I let my mind fall open, seeking without reaching, welcoming whatever the Tree would say; and it seemed that the Old Weavers themselves had spun their threads among the twigs and tattered leaves, for they moved in and out of the same shapes over and over, dancing in and out of my sight to the rhythm of the wind of ages. Was there meaning in it? Could I learn to speak the tongue of the Great Tree, and if I did, would it answer my call?

And there…there…the first one came, three slender branches taking its form again and again, while in my mind an image formed: a cow, grazing in the fields beyond the verdant hills of my homeland. It lifted its liquid brown eyes to mine, and I could see reflected in them three branches, forming a shape, a sound, a letter--

 Fehu.

One by one, each weaving itself in and out, over and under, throughout the vast canopy above and within the twining roots far below, I saw them. I spoke their names, the first sounds I had uttered in nine days and nine nights. Their shapes burned into me like brands, searing my thoughts, banishing all else, until nothing remained but them, their meaning, their creation. They were the language of the Earth, the stars, the mystery of Fire and the shine of sunlight on ice; they described, encircled, embodied all, as did the Tree that yielded them up to me.

           Uruz.  Wunjo. 

                    Jera.  Tyr.   

                            Dagalaz. Othila.

Eight, and eight, and eight more…and when all had appeared before me, the whole litany danced again, this time in a circle, then a spiral, turning sunwise as the year turns, yet faster, and faster, until it seemed the universe itself shook beneath their power.

It was then that I heard a cracking, felt the jolt downward as the branch began to break under my weight, but it was a distant, unimportant thing. I felt the air rush past me, whistling, and heard myself singing out the names again, each one in its turn around the spiral, and as the last one’s name left my lips I felt the ground rise up to meet me, and I fell to the Earth, laughing.

And when I opened my eyes again, to see the grass and the world righted in my sight, my gaze lit upon a small sliver of wood that looked as though it had fallen from the Tree with me. Marked upon it was the first symbol, and nearby lay the second. I reached out with a weakened, trembling hand, felt my fingers close around the symbol, felt its life as the life returned to my battered body. Another fell close at hand, and another, and another; the Tree rained down the Runes to me, and I drank them in like water, pouring their language through me as, over the verdant rise that scrolled out from where I lay, a swift sunrise turned into golden morning, and the hills called me home to rest.

Comments

[Mr. Wednesday]

OMG!!!
You so rock!!
Can i haves it??
Maybe written in your own hand?!?!

Love Always,
MHB

[Christine]

Beautiful!!! Your words would make the Old Man proud. As a long time student of the runes, I will be very interested in your Wednesday posts. I am starting a new runic year in a few days, and I have come to the conclusion that I need to start to add my own interpretations on top of what I have learned from books. I look forward to your thoughts.

[Danmara]

WOW.

Amazing story Dianne!!! That is beautiful.

[Amy]

Dianne - this is beautiful. Thank you for posting it. I have a set of runes that have been sitting on my altar for quite some time now....you've inspired me to start working with them again!

[Ari]

Gorgeous! I'm looking forward to this series of posts. I remember reading some of what you wrote about the runes in your old email newsletter.

I'm teaching myself various forms of tarot, but the runes are what I currently know first and best.