Tales from the Ironwood

This essay was begun on 3 October and completed on Samhain 2021. It completes my analysis of the Armanen Runes making up the initial aett. In KA I complete the first third of a voyage that began in the raw potential of the Ginnungagap and arrives at the manifestation of the first human beings. The cosmological fire of FA is now the fire of spirit glowing inside each of us. ********* My meditations on KA begin with a reading of the 151st verse of the Hávamál . “A sixth one is mine: Should a warrior try To hurt me with the roots of soft wood: This warrior who awakens the hatred in me Shall be struck before he can hurt me.”[1] Guido von List interpreted KA and this verse specifically based on the zeitgeist of his time commenting “The tribe, the race, is to be purely preserved; it may not be defiled by the roots of the foreign tree.”[2] The Old English Rune Poem ( OERP ) sounds a seemingly different note: “(CEN) Torch is known to each living being by fire Radiant and bright,

Begun on 26 September and completed on 3 October 2021, my "Meditations on RIT" was born in a flash. I realized that some of the key concepts of RIT had snuck their way into my essay on OS. This error was simple to make as one rune indeed leads to the next in a continuous process of initiation. Now in their rightful place, those ideas contribute to this essay that considers both the cosmological and personal journeys that RIT enables. ********* I begin my meditations on RIT, the fifth of the Armanen Runes by considering Hávamá l verse 150. “This I know as a fifth: If in hostile flight An arrow shoots into the crowd; No matter how it threatens, I block its force By grasping it tightly with the look of my eyes.”[1] On the surface, this verse from Rúnatáls-þáttr-Óðins “Odins Rune Song” seems similar to several other runic verses with the theme of “protection.” A key but subtle difference is that the protection of the folk[2]  empowered by this song and the Rune RIT is