Meditations on LAF: Journeys Between the Nine Worlds

Begun on 18 March 2021 and completed on the Spring Equinox, this essay is another installment of what will be a complete set of meditations on the Armanen Futhorkh. These will form the centerpiece of the book that I am currently writing that will consider various thoughts on Asatru, Runes, and Magick.

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As I ponder the esoteric meaning of LAF, the fourteenth rune of the Armanen Futhorkh, I begin as usual by meditating on the relevant verse from the Hávamál, verse 159:

A Fourteenth I sing
To all the assembled people
And I name the Divine Names
For no one knows the names
Of all Albes and Ases
As well as I do.[1]

Karl Hans Welz provides this explanation for a seemingly obscure verse:

“Clearly there is reference to names. An old magical idea is that once you know the name of an entity you have it under your control, a name being a structural link to an energy field. The references to Light beings (Albes, or elves) and gods (Ases or Aesir) are obvious. LAF, then, is a way to control the beings of the finer densities before they descend into the material plane.”[2]

If these beings are then “channeled” or evoked, they travel from a place or world in the astral universe outside of our normal material plane. Paramahansa Yogananda wrote in Autobiography of a Yogi, 

“The astral universe . . . is hundreds of times larger than the material universe …[with] many astral planets, teeming with astral beings.”[3]

From a Norse mythological perspective these “astral planets” may be thought of as the Nine Worlds – filled with an abundance of beings, including among others, gods and elves. Often overlooked, and even excised from certain translations of the Völuspá is the catalog of dwarfs beginning at verse 9 and running through verse 16.

Interestingly verse 9 begins, not unlike the relevant Hávamál verse, by referring to the gods in their assembly:

“Then sought the gods their assembly seats,
The holy ones, and council held,
To find who should raise the race of dwarfs
Out of Brimir’s blood and the legs of Blain.”[4]

What follows in the “catalog” are some 70 names of dwarfs or beings. Surely one can say that the Seeress raised up by Odin whose words are recounted in the Völuspá “knows the names of all Albes” quite well.

Welz writes:

“LAF teaches us the names of these entities. In this aspect, LAF is the gate that opens for us the gates to the spheres where the deities dwell.”[5]

Throughout the Eddas, bodies of water symbolize an etheric plane that must be crossed to reach the various worlds (spheres) where deities or beings reside. One prominent example of this is provided by Snorri Sturluson in “Gylfaginning” (“The Tricking of Gyfli”) when High answers Gangleri’s question, “What way is there to heaven from earth?” High responds by describing the “rainbow bridge.”

“Has no one ever told you that the gods built a bridge to heaven from earth called Bifrost? You must have seen it, maybe it is what you call the rainbow.”[6]

We learn shortly thereafter that the gods “have their court” each day beneath the third root of the World Tree, Yggdrasil at Urd’s well. All of the Aesir, with the exception of Thor, travel to their destination via the Bifrost. It is important to understand that Thor walks and “wades rivers whose names are: Kormt and Ormt and two Kerlaugs.”[7]

Therefore, Thor crosses between worlds by wading through rivers. Similarly, following the death of Baldr, Hermod rides Odin’s horse Sleipnir to travel for nine nights to reach the world of Hel to request that Baldr be released so that he might return to Asgard. Hermod, “saw nothing until he came to the river Gioll and rode on to Gioll bridge.”[8]  We learn that Baldr too had crossed the river Gioll on his journey to Hel.

The Völuspá provides this important example of a "water-crossing" as beings travel between worlds during the initial events of Ragnarök:

“Sails a ship from the east with shades from Hel;
O’er the ocean stream steers it Loki;
In the wake of the Wolf rush witless hordes
Who with baleful Byleist’s brother do fare.”[9]

Turning to the verse of the Old English Rune Poem (OERP) verse that explains LAGU, the Old English rune equivalent to LAF, we read: 

“LAGU (Water) is seemingly endless to men / if they must fare on a tilting ship / and sea-waves frighten them mightily / and the sea-steed does not heed the bridle.”[10] 

The Norwegian Rune Poem (NRP) similarly says:

“LOGR (Water) is that which as a stream falls from hillside; but trinkets are golden.”[11]

Guido Von List applied the motto, “First learn to steer, then dare the sea-journey”[12] to LAF. That he was thinking of something beyond an exoteric sea-journey and utilizing the OERP's adjective "endless," he commented that those "unaccustomed to such deep vision and clairvoyance, could no more see the primal law than the physical eye can see the whole ocean, or the unschooled inner, spiritual eye the endlessness of life in the All."[13] Indeed LAF is not only powerful for the invocation of Higher Order Entities, but may be used for astral travel and movement between the Nine Worlds.

As is the case throughout the NRP, the verse presents a puzzle to the reader – in which they may demonstrate their knowledge by properly associating the second phrase to the first. Here my thoughts on that association are purely conjectural. Two golden trinkets come to mind. First is the Ring of the Nifelung. The "Reginsmál" (“The Lay of Regin”) recounts how Loki visited the waterfall of Andvari and cast his net for a pike. Andvari, a dwarf, had taken on the form of a pike in order to catch food. Loki sees and steals Andvari’s gold. Andvari attempts to withhold one golden ring, but Loki takes that from him as well.

Interestingly Siegfried Kummer comments on LAF, “the one who seeks through selfishness, greed and animal lust will suffer hard and painfully from the forces of the LAF rune until he has recovered and navigated the Lagu = sea of life and death.”[14] One may certainly associate such behaviors with the “curse” of the ring following Loki’s theft from Andvari. It is worth noting that Kummer associates LAF with salmon and Loki, as well as several unrelated concepts.

Another option for the referenced “golden trinket” is the miraculous ring Draupnir. Once again following Loki’s mischief a magical solution is sought. Along with several other wondrous items, the Black Elves (Dwarfs) create Draupnir, a magical ring that is said to drip eight golden rings every ninth night. Following Baldr’s death, Odin lays Draupnir on Baldr’s dead body while he lay on his funeral pyre. Is Draupnir able to assist the dead in their journey between worlds? Perhaps Draupnir is the positive “golden trinket” – an expression of “love” by Odin towards his son – and a joining of interactive life energies with original chaos. Conversely, the ring may represent the demonic of LAF, ultimately corrupting, deceiving, and annihilating.

While both Guido von List and Karl Hans Welz are somewhat dismissive of the use of mythology as a means to understanding and explaining the runes, it is my personal belief that such an approach remains helpful, for those well-versed in it, for communicating their meaning and addressing their mysteries.

Welz observes,

“In ancient times the mythological method helped in the gaining of insights into the workings of the universe on all levels. It helped to describe that which belonged to psychology. The myths contained symbols that represented the laws of the universe and their connection with humankind. Today we talk of energies, powers, forces, vibrations, elements, planes, and entities.”[15]

Similarly before him, Von List commented,

“Such esoteric knowledge was communicated to the folk in symbolically formulated myths, for the naïve popular eye.”[16]

Their views may be reconciled with the mythological approach by realizing that the mythology does not define the rune, but rather the spirit of the rune may be expressed according to the mythology. 

From the Norse mythological perspective, the primal laws conveyed by LAF refer to the overall structure of the universe or multiverse as manifested by Odin following the chaos of Ginnungagap. The shape of that multiverse is the World Tree Yggdrasil comprised partly of the Nine Worlds. LAF refers not only to the Nine Worlds, but also to the ocean of etheric space between the worlds – and the “gates” and “bridges” by which entities may pass through or cross over. LAF then provides the means by which the Aesir or Vanir may cross the rainbow bridge Bifrost to reveal themselves to the people of Midgard.

Notes: 

1. Translation by Karl Hans Welz, Letter of Instructions # 14, The Rune LAF. https://knightsofrunes.com/rune_magic14.html 

2. Ibid.

3. Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi (Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1946), 416.

4. Henry Adams Bellows, The Poetic Edda: The Mythological Poems (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2004), 6.

5. Welz.

6. Snorri Sturluson, Edda, trans. Anthony Faulkes (North Clarendon, VT: Everyman, 1995), 15.

7. Sturluson, 17-18. 

8. Sturluson, 50. 

9. Lee M. Hollander, The Poetic Edda (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2012), 10.

10. Stephen Pollington, Rudiments of Runelore (Cambridgeshire, Anglo-Saxon Books, 2011), 49.

11. Pollington, 54.

12. Guido von List, The Secret of the Runes, trans. Stephen Flowers (Rochester VT: Destiny Books, 1988), 60. 

13. Ibid.

14. Siegfried Adolf Kummer, Holy Rune Might, trans. Aelfric Avery (Vavenby, CA: Woodharrow Bund Press, 2019), 74. 

15. Welz.

16. Von List, 60.