Meditations on OS: Odin's Voice
Technically I began writing this essay on 26 September 2021. The ideas however began forming years earlier. OS has enabled me to give this essay a voice. OS freed it from the captivity of time, of space, of procrastination, of lethargy. Revised 3 October 2021. ********* As I begin my meditations on the fourth rune OS, I consider Hávamál verse 149: “A fourth song I know: Should an enemy put A tie onto pliable limbs; Then I speak the spell, the shackles break from the feet And the fetters from the hands.”[1] With this verse it is the act of “speaking” or “chanting”[2] that not only realizes the intended effect of OS but which aligns it to the Old English Rune Poem ( OERP ). The OERP tells us: “Os (God) is the origin of all language, wisdom’s foundation and wise man’s comfort, and to every hero blessing and hope.” [3] Guido Von List emphasized the relationship of OS to the mouth and to the power of speech. Also importantly he associated the word Os to As and Ase – meaning ...