Meditations on UR: Audumla’s Rivers of Milk

This essay was composed on 1 August 2021 --now half-way between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox. The ideas contained within have been fully formed for quite some time. They only needed to be revealed --to be separated -- from the frozen earth that hid their form.

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I begin my meditations on each rune by reading and reciting the relevant verse from the Hávamál. Here, in the case of UR, the relevant verse is 147.

“A second I know: It is useful for people
Who practice the healing hand.
It chases disease and all pain.
It cures hurts and all wounds.”[1]

We learn immediately that UR is a rune of healing. How then does this concept correlate with the common association with an aurochs, an extinct wild European beast, that we find in the Old English Rune Poem (OERP)?

“UR (Aurochs) is fierce and high-horned
the courageous beast fights with its horns
a well-known moor-treader,
it is a brave creature.”[2]

It is important to understand that the word “ur” means “primal” or “primitive.” It is derived from the German ur meaning “out of” or “original.” Guido von List largely determined rune meaning through etymology. He refers to UR as “the primordial” and associates the rune with several primal concepts including primal fire, primal light, and perhaps most importantly the primal bull.[3] Here it becomes important to note that another name for the aurochs is “urus.” “Urus” is a Latin word that was borrowed from the Old English/Old High German ūr and Old Norse úr. The Old High German ūr or “primordial” was compounded with ohso “ox,” resulting in ūrohso, which became the early modern “aurochs.”[4]

From the perspective of Germanic spirituality, the ultimate primal bull or cosmic primal cow is Audumla (ON: Auðumbla) who fed the first primal-being Ymir, the frost giant. Snorri Sturluson describes Audumla  in Gylfaginning as follows:

“The next thing, when the rime dripped, was that there came into being from it a cow called Audumla, and four rivers of milk flowed from its teats, and it fed Ymir.”[5]

UR then represents the nurturing nature of Audumla. UR is both all-nurturing and all-healing. UR gives birth. It is Nature’s flowing milk, healing its people.

Audumla not only fed Ymir, but also by licking the limestones it revealed the Ur-God, ancestor of the Aesir, and grandfather of Odin, Búri (ON: “Father”).

The Norwegian Rune Poem (NRP) refers to UR as slag:

“UR (Slag) is from bad iron.”[6]

Like slag, a by-product that results when desired metals are separated from raw ore, Audumla separated Búri from the ice or frozen snow.

“[Audumla] licked the rime-stones, which were salty. And the first day as it licked stones there came from the stones in the evening a man’s hair, the second day a man’s head, the third day there was a complete man there. His name was Búri.”[7]

Images from the lore include “rivers of milk” flowing from Audumla’s teats, melting ice, and licking. UR then is primordial nature itself. It represents the nurturing of mankind by the Earth. It is the healing effect of the Earth (Earth mother) and the medicines that we find in it. Karl Spiesberger tells us that UR is the rune of the Ur-Mutter “Ur-Mother.”[8] Karl Hans Welz writes in his “Song of UR,” “I am looking at the origin and root of creation-eternal. I am looking at UR as being the Rune of All-Mother-God.”[9] The relationship between primal holy cows and the Earth Goddess is common throughout several cultures. Rudolf Simek explains this relationship in several non-Germanic religions in his Dictionary of Northern Mythology: “The Egyptian Hathor is a cow-headed goddess of the skies; both Hera (‘the cow-eyed’) and especially Isis have characteristics referring back to the image of a cow.”[10]

As we shift from meditation and basic meaning to practice and deep esoteric understanding, we come to appreciate that through UR we are filled with Earth’s healing energies. These enable us, first to heal ourselves and then to share that healing with others, and ultimately the planet. Welz explains, “UR is Mother-God whom I have found within myself and who is my origin, my root, and my cause of causes.” In order to use such powers of healing and nurturing, we must first know ourselves. It is no surprise then that Guido von List applied his motto, “Know yourself, then you will know all” to this rune.[11] We must gain insight into our strengths and our weaknesses. Only then may we begin the process of healing.

In the sequence of the Futhorkh, UR is among the “arising” aett. It is rightly second, lodged between FA and THORN. The first rune FA represents the primal potential of the budding rune master. The third rune THORN describes the rune energy in a raw unbridled form. UR teaches that in order to realize the potential of FA and in order to wield the powers of THORN positively, we must first nurture and heal ourselves.

Esoterically, UR reveals that we are the Aurochs referred to in the OERP. We are courageous and brave but often lacking the insight and self-awareness that is necessary to begin the initial act of self-healing. We find that we are immobile in the ice and limestone until we nurture ourselves through healing to emerge whole, beautiful, and powerful. Through UR, we separate the good from the slag – just as Audumla brought forth Búri from the ice.

Notes:

1. Translation by Karl Hans Welz, Letter of Instructions #2: The Rune UR. https://runemagick.com/rune_magic02.html 

2. Stephen Pollington, Rudiments of Runelore (Cambridgeshire, UK: Anglo-Saxon Books, 2011), 45. 

3. Guido von List, The Secret of the Runes, trans. Stephen E. Flowers (Rochester, VT: Destiny Books, 1988), 50. 

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs 

5. Snorri Sturluson, Edda, trans., Anthony Faulkes (North Clarendon, VT: Everyman, 1995), 11. 

6. Pollington, 52. 

7. Sturluson, 11. 

8. Karl Spiesberger, Runenmagie: Handbuch der Runenkunde (Basel, CH: Esoterischer Verlag, 2020), 20. 

9. Welz. 

10. Rudolf Simek, trans. Angela Hall, Dictionary of Northern Mythology (Rochester, NY: D.S. Brewer, 2007), 22. 

11. Von List, 50.