Hearthside

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...