Hearthside

The last few years I have been doing something with Rune Rasmussen’s Nordic Animist Year and using his years along with the Rune poems to create a sort of Farmer’s Almanac type prediction for the year. Now, I had been doing that in about February the last couple years, so that I had a taste of the year already but had not got too far into it. Unfortunately, time has gotten away from me this year. I have a lot more Heathen and non-Heathen commitments this year, and also with it being the Year of Aun/Unn, I have had a divided focus.  So now it is nearing the end of May and I am just writing this. The Ar year, “Ar” being the Jera rune. It is the “Year” Year. Happy Year?  But more seriously, this year marks the end of a period of stagnance in the Runic Animist Years. We had a 3 year period of stagnance (think covid in this case) and we are emerging. The Ar year is about the return to greenery and abundance. We can expect warmer weather, better crops, and coming out of our stagnanc...

So I have seen some interesting discourse for the start of the Aun year, which started on the New Moon (according to Rune Rasmussen’s reckoning.) There seems to be a bit of confusion why the name Aun is associated with the 9 year cycle. Rune didn’t just make that up. It is likely that the story of King Aun was in part a story that taught how to reckon the 9 year cycle to the elder Heathens. (The 9 year cycle is 9 years inclusive, or by modern reckoning, which is exclusive reckoning… 8 years.) So what is the Aun story, for those not familiar?    In Upsal's town the cruel king Slaughtered his sons at Odin's shrine -- Slaughtered his sons with cruel knife, To get from Odin length of life. He lived until he had to turn His toothless mouth to the deer's horn; And he who shed his children's blood Sucked through the ox's horn his food. At length fell Death has tracked him down, Slowly, but sure, in Upsal's town. - Y...

Last year I was talking a bit about Rune Hjarno Rasmussen’s Runic Animist Calendar and the companion book the Runic Animist Year. The rune for 2020 was Hail, and the rune for 2021 was Need. I talked about them here . Moving forward the Golden Number rune for 2022 is ice (Isa). This is the rune that represents where the New Moon falls on the Runic Animist Calendar and it is also linked with the Swedish Rune poem, which makes a sort of prediction for how the year will go.  Is bro bredast.   Ice is the broadest bridge.  Isköld, Winteråhr.  Ice-cold winter year. This suggests a harsh winter this year but also the bridge out of the harshness that we experienced in the previous two years.  We can compare it to the Norwegian Runic poem to gain more insights: Ís ko, llum brú bræiða; blindan þarf at læiða. Ice we call the broad bridge; the blind man must be led. Again we see the reference to the bridge but this time with a caution; an ice bridge is still slippery and dan...

I don’t usually like to delve too much into runes, because it seems like more of a rabbit-hole than I conceivably have time for. I do have a basic understanding of runes, of course, but I normally just avoid working with them in any manner. This tends to get looks from people when I state this, but let’s be honest… learning Old Nordic has been a far more useful application of my time. Learning runes does not necessarily help in understanding Old Nordic as not all inscriptions with them are linguistic in nature. And it seems to me, the majority of people learning them aren’t interested in their linguistic capabilities either. Which is all good, but someone else can be the keeper of that knowledge not me. Where am I going with this? Heck if I know! It was all very clear to me when I was out on a lovely Spring walk earlier, but some of that clarity has faded now. I know where I want to start though. A lot of people have been talking about the Isa rune as the rune that represents the pande...