Runes

“ In Runatal (Odin’s Rune song) , or the last part of Havamal, there is a most interesting account of the use that could be made of runes. It shows plainly that in earlier times they were not used by the people in general for writing; that they were mystic, being employed for conjurations and the like, and therefore regarded with a certain awe and superstition; just as to-day writing is looked upon by certain savage tribes, who cannot be made to understand how speech can be transmitted and kept on paper for an indefinite period. ”

“ Each letter of the Runic alphabet was supposed to possess a mysterious and magical power. In the Scandinavian mythology, each Rune was originally dedicated to some deity; it also denoted some natural quality or object: their Asiatic origin is now proved beyond doubt. There is a remarkable poem in the elder Edda--the Song of Brynhildé, in which mention is made of several kinds of Runes. ”

“ And the sword that had visited Earth from so far away smote like the falling of thunderbolts; and green sparks rose from the armour, and crimson as sword met sword; and thick elvish blood moved slowly, from wide slits, down the cuirass; and Lirazel gazed in awe and wonder and love; and the combatants edged away fighting into the forest; and branches fell on them hacked off by their fight; and the runes in Alveric's far-travelled sword exulted, and roared at the elf-knight; ”

“ The witch approached it and pared its edges with a sword that she drew from her thigh. Then she sat down beside it on the earth and sang to it while it cooled. Not like the runes that enraged the flames was the song she sang to the sword: ”

“ Helge and Halfdan now became the kings of Sogn and Frithiof went to live on the estate of Framnas, left him by his father. Great indeed was his inheritance, for he came into possession of the wonderful sword Angurvadel, on the blade of which were mystic runes [Footnote: Runes, letters or characters of ancient Scandinavian alphabets. The literal meaning of rune, a secret or mystery, is explained by the fact that at first these symbols could be read only by a few.] dull in times of peace, but fiery red in war ”

“ For the story of Suttung and Gunlad, see second part, pp. 246-253.
16. In the North a holy oath was taken on a ring kept in the temple for that purpose.
17. Carving: runes are risted = runes are carved.
18. In a battle we must not look up, but forward.
19. To become panic-stricken, which the Norsemen called to become swine.
20. The meaning is, it is difficult to show hospitality to everybody. A door would have to be strong to stand so much opening and shutting.
21. The parenthesis refers to Fafner’s death.
22. The name of a rune; our N.
23. ”

“ There Greece, to every thinker, still very literally lives; can be called-up again into life. No magic Rune is stranger than a Book. All that Mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of Books. They are the chosen possession of men.
389Do not Books still accomplish miracles as Runes were fabled to do? They persuade men. ”

“ The writer probably intended to represent the chief vowels—A. E. I. O. Y. U. The Runic alphabet was divided into classes; the strokes on the left of the vertical line indicating the class, and those on the right the rune itself. Figures of fishes were occasionally in use, and were known as Fish-runes.—Professor Munch.
Ingibiorg Hin Fahra Æhkia a Morhg Kona
Hæfir Farit Lut in Hir Mihkil Oflati.
Ingibiorg, the fair widow, or Ingibiorg the Fair, the widow. Many a rather proud woman
did walk here stooping (bent forward) , or did walk stooping here in (into) . ”

“ The fourth rune was the Rune of the Green Trees and of all things that grow.
The fifth rune was the Rune of Man and Bird and Beast, and of everything that lives and moves, in the air, on the earth, and in the sea: all that is seen of man, and all that is unseen of man.
The sixth rune was the Rune of Birth, from the spawn on the wave to the Passion of Woman.
The seventh rune was the Rune of Death, from the quenching of a gnat to the fading of the stars. ”

“ He opened the coffer with a spell, for it opened to no key, and taking from it an ancient parchment scroll he rose and read from it while his daughter wept. And the words of the rune as he read were like the notes of a band of violins, all played by masters chosen from many ages, hidden on midsummer's midnight in a wood, with a strange moon shining, the air all full of madness and mystery; and, lurking close but invisible, things beyond the wisdom of man.
Thus he read that rune, and powers heard and obeyed it, not alone in Elfland but over the border of Earth. ”

“ One day in spring—long after the snows were melted—except here and there a patch like a flock of sheep on some sunless exposure—a huge Raven rose heavily, as if gorged with prey, before the feet of a shepherd, who, going forward to the spot where the bird had been feeding, beheld a rotting corpse! ”

“ The dart of Râmas falls upon the monster Kharas (the monster ass) , as upon a great tree falls the thunderbolt hurled by Indras. [200] Heroes and monsters combat with stones and rocks from the great mountain, and fall, overthrown on the earth, like mountains. The monster Râvaṇas carries off Sîtâ with the magic of the wind and the tempest. [201] Heroes and monsters fight with trunks of trees from the great forest; moreover, the trunks themselves, having become monsters, join the fray, stretch out their strange arms, and devour the hero in their cavities. ”

“ The hero becomes the excrement of a horse, and the horse a crow; the former glues the monster's lower lip to the earth, the latter suspends his upper lip to the sky. In order better to understand this strange myth, we must remember that the name of one of the Valkiries is "Mist," a word which means excrement and fog. The fog, or frost, or rain, or dew, falls to the ground; [Pg 291] the solar horse, or the sun, rises in the sky; the monster of night or of clouds is dispersed. ”

“ Snow-shoe rabbits were plentiful and wherever their runways led in and out of the scrub-spruce and fir covers, there those furred assassins of the forest, the fox and the lynx, the fisher and the marten, were sure to make their hunting-grounds. ”

“ They left the caves in the morning, and they never came back. They disappeared--into the ravenous maws of the hunting creatures.
This inroad of the Fire People on the carrot-patch was the beginning of the end, though we did not know it. The hunters of the Fire People began to appear more frequently as the time went by. They came in twos and threes, creeping silently through the forest, with their flying arrows able to annihilate distance and bring down prey from the top of the loftiest tree without themselves climbing into it. ”

“ The cranes pursue, and, clustering in a ring,
Chatter triumphant round the captive king.
But, ah! what pangs each pygmy bosom wrung,
When, now to cranes a prey, on talons hung, [98]
High in the clouds they saw their helpless lord,
His wriggling form still lessening as he soared!
Lo! yet again, with unabated rage,
In mortal strife the mingling hosts engage.
The crane with darted bill assaults the foe,
Hovering; then wheels aloft to scape the blow:
The dwarf in anguish aims the vengeful wound ”

“ The whole heaven was darkened by the dense cloud of arrows, through which the flashes, made by the arrows striking against one another, played like lightning, and rivers of blood flowed, swollen with the gore of many elephants and horses wounded with weapons, in which the bodies of heroes moved like alligators. That battle gave great delight to heroes, jackals, and goblins, that danced, waded, and shouted in blood. ”

“ The fire was to have lighted the dry grass, and the huntsman was to have been suffocated in the heat and smoke, but the animals came running up and trampled out the fire. Then the dragon rushed upon the huntsman, but he swung his sword until it sang through the air, and struck off three of his heads. Then the dragon grew right furious, and rose up in the air, and spat out flames of fire over the huntsman, and was about to plunge down on him, but the huntsman once more drew out his sword, and again cut off three of his heads. ”

“ I was looking upon the snow, and upon the raven, and upon the drops of the blood of the bird that the hawk had killed upon the snow. And I bethought me that her whiteness was like that of the snow, and that the blackness of her hair and her eyebrows like that of the raven, and that the two red spots upon her cheeks were like the two drops of blood. ”

“ They seem to glide or float along rather than to walk. Hence the name sìthche and its synonyms are often applied contemptuously to a person who sneaks about or makes his approach without warning. Sometimes indeed the elves make a rustling noise like that of a gust of wind, or a silk gown, or a sword drawn sharply through the air, and their coming and going has been even indicated by frightful and unearthly shrieks, a pattering as of a flock of sheep, or the louder trampling of a troop of horses. ”

“ Soon a mingled roar, like bellowing, neighing, and bleating, resounded half a mile to the south, and immense herds appeared, tumbling, rising, and rushing, a confused mass of terrified beasts, and fled by with frightful rapidity. ”

“ The raven suddenly closes his outspread wings, just as a man might drop his arms to his sides, and falls head downwards through the air like a stone bird cast down from its pedestal; but he falls obliquely, and, after falling for a space of twenty or thirty or more feet, he throws out his wings and floats for a few seconds on the air, then falls again, and then again, until the earth is reached. ”

“ The Raven! In a solitary glen sits down on a stone the roaming pedestrian, beneath the hush and gloom of a thundery sky that has not yet begun to growl, and hears no sounds but that of an occasional big rain-drop, plashing on the bare bent; the crag high overhead sometimes utters a sullen groan—the pilgrim, starting, listens, and the noise is repeated, but instead of a groan, a croak—croak—croak! manifestly from a thing with life. ”

“ The sound of a triple tramp on the snow-patched road is all that is heard for a few moments; then, from its feast of carrion beside a rock, a great raven soars croaking up, up, up, high above the dale to where the sun still reigned. The sight of this swooping bird fills the shepherd with wrath.
‘Ay, thoo may croak,’ he says sadly,112 ‘but maybe we’ll be the better of thee in nesting-time.’ Then to us:113 ‘Those ravens are a nuisance. Every spring we have to go out nesting to keep down their numbers. They think little of attacking a weakly lamb and carrying it off among the rocks. ”

“ For my part, I admire the Raven, because I see much in him calculated to excite our wonder. It is true that he may sometimes hasten the death of a half-starved sheep, or destroy a weakly lamb; he may eat the eggs of other birds, or occasionally steal from the farmer some of those which he calls his own; young fowls also afford precious morsels to himself and his progeny;—but how many sheep, lambs, and fowls, are saved through his agency! The more intelligent of our farmers are well aware that the Raven destroys numberless insects, grubs, and worms ”

“ The young archer rode along the forest path and listened for the singing of the birds, but there was no singing. The forest was silent, and the only noises in it were the scratching of four-footed beasts, the dropping of fir cones, and the heavy stamping of the horse of power in the soft path.
"What has come to the birds?" said the young archer. ”

“ I cut the rod and gave it to her. She turned from me and struck a blow on a stone, and changed it; and she struck a second blow on me, and made of me a black raven, and she went home and left me after her. I thought she would come back; she did not come, and I had to go into a tree till morning. In the morning, at six o'clock, there was a bellman out, proclaiming that every one who killed a raven would get a fourpenny-bit. At last you could not find man or boy without a gun, nor, if you were to walk three miles, a raven that was not killed. ”

“ Its carrion-eating propensities were well known to the ancient writers, who must have had many opportunities of seeing the Raven unite with the vultures in consuming the bodies, not only of dead animals, but of warriors killed in battle. So fond was the Raven of this food that, according to those writers, the very smell of human blood attracted the bird; and, if a man accidentally cut himself, or if he were bled for some illness, the odour of the blood would bring round the spot all the Ravens of the place. ”

“ Then the prince took counsel with his beasts, and as the dragon approached the shore the fox drew his brush through the water and blinded the dragon by scattering the salt water in his eyes, while the bear and the lion threw up more water with their paws, so that the monster was bewildered and could see nothing. Then the prince rushed forward with his sword and killed the dragon, and the beasts tore the body in pieces. ”

“ Over mountains clothed in heather,
That the eye may not behold him,
Nor the hero's ear detect him.
Thereupon the mighty hunter
Angry grows, and much disheartened,
Starts again the moose to capture,
Gliding off behind the courser. ”

“ At last the sun came rising up out of his place, like a fire spreading far and wide over the mountains and forests; he rises up, his head passes through the noose, and it takes in more and more of his body, until his fore-paws pass through; then the ropes are pulled tight, and the monster begins to struggle and roll himself about, whilst the snare jerks backward and forward as he struggles. ”