Tales from the Ironwood

This essay was completed on 23 November 2021. Life's experiences over the past several weeks helped provide new insight into the HAG-ALL rune and in turn to that tree of which none telleth from what roots it doth rise. ********* As I begin my meditations on the rune HAGAL, I return to the Hávam ál. In verse 152 Odin reveals how he uses this rune magically to save people from a hall in flames: “A seventh I know: Should the hall blaze high in flames above all the people; no matter how it burns, I save them all: This magic I know to perform.” [1] Immediately the exoteric association of HAGAL with hail, which is emphasized in each of the standard rune poems, comes to mind. It is simple to envision hail colliding with the blazing hall resulting in the flames being extinguished. Each of the standard rune poems also use “corn” as a metaphor for HAGAL. Representative of these is the Old English Rune Poem ( OERP ): “Hail is whitest of corn, from heaven’s height it whirls, w...

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 ...

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 ...

On one hand, the current article was begun on 29 August 2021 and completed on 5 September 2021. On the other hand, my meditations that brought Ymir raging into my consciousness occurred sometime in 2017. At that time I was working my way through Edred Thorsson's curriculum known as The Nine Doors of Midgard .  My meditations then focused on the rune that would come to be called *THURISAZ. In its actual ancient rendering it is known as THURS or THORN. It is in the latter form and within the context of my Armanen studies that this essay has formed like so many droplets from the melting rime. ********* I begin my meditations on THORN by considering Karl Welz’s translation of verse 148 from the Hávamál : “A third song is mine: If urgency tells To tie the opponents with magic Then I blunt the steel of my foes So that their swords will not cut any more.” [1] To be fully transparent, I performed substantive meditation on the meaning of THORN prior to beginning my Armanen rune work. ...