What is a Rune

by Collin Cleary

  We will begin in medias res, after the coming into being of the world itself from fire and ice, and after Odin and his two brothers slew the giant Ymir and created from his remains a new world of their own design. Strolling along the sea-shore, Odin and his companions encountered two trees, Ask (ash) and Embla (which may mean elm). They transformed the first into a man, the second into a woman. But just how they do this—and who does the doing—is given differently in the two Eddas.

  First, let us consider the relevant passages in the Poetic Edda

  Until three gods, strong and loving,

  came from that company to the world;

  they found on land Ask and Embla,

  capable of little, lacking in fate.

  Breath they had not, spirit they had not,

  hair nor vital spark nor fresh complexions;

  breath gave Odin, spirit gave Hœnir,

  hair gave Lodur, and fresh complexions.51

  In the Prose Edda, not only do the gifts of the gods to Ask and Embla differ, so do the gods’ names. In this account, Odin is joined not by Hœnir and Lodur but by Vili and Ve, who are explicitly identified as his brothers. Just as before, Odin gives önd (vital breath) but also líf (life). (These are related, as we will see.) Vili confers vit (wit or understanding) and hræring (emotion52). Finally, Ve gives ásjónu (form), mál (speech or language), heyrn (hearing), and sjón (sight). It should furthermore be noted that in the Prose Edda the gods also generously provide these newly-made humans with clothing and names.53 All the races of mankind that live on Midgard are said to spring from these two beings.

  The following chart summarizes the differences between the two texts:

  POETIC EDDA PROSE EDDA

  Odin gives önd; Odin gives önd and líf;

  Hœnir gives óðr; Vili gives vit and hræring;

  Lodur gives lá and litugóða Ve gives ásjónu, mál, heyrn,

  and sjón

  My impression is that even those who adhere to Ásatrú often tend to regard the story of Ask and Embla as “quaint”: an antiquated, false theory of human origins. But myth is not intended to be literal truth, and I’m assuming that my readers don’t need me to make the oft-heard argument that myth is not primarily a device for “explaining” the physical universe (not, in other words, “pre-scientific”).54 Our primary interest in the story of Ask and Embla is what it conveys about human nature in general, and specifically about Western man.

  Ever since I was small, people have told me that I am descended from apes. I don’t particularly like this, as I think apes are rather vile creatures. What was it like for our ancestors to grow up thinking they were descended from trees? What is it like to feel a kinship with the trees? To begin with, trees are much nobler creatures than apes. They are often extremely old (some bristlecone pine trees are more than 5,000 years old). They are rooted to the earth, and chthonic—yet they stretch themselves to the sky, as if trying to escape the earth. As we will see, this is a small but significant point. Immediately after telling us the story of how an ash tree was made into a man, the Poetic Edda tells us of Yggdrasil, the world ash tree. This irresistibly suggests a microcosm-macrocosm correspondence (at least in the case of males!). Is my backbone the column of the world-tree, and vice versa? Are there nine worlds along me, as there are along Yggdrasil? One cannot help but think here of the chakras of kundalini yoga—which Edred Thorsson (in Futhark, Runelore, and elsewhere) alludes to in a veiled way, just as Evola does when he writes of alchemy in The Hermetic Tradition. But that is a subject for another essay . . .55

  Now, however, we must turn to a closer examination of the names and natures of the gods who confer these gifts on Ask and Embla, and the nature of those gifts. And we will begin with the material from the Poetic Edda.

  2. THE ANTHROPOGENY OF THE POETIC EDDA

  The name Odin, of course, is related to óðr which, oddly enough, is the gift of Hœnir, not of Odin (more on that in a moment). Odin’s gift to Ask and Embla is önd, which means “breath.” “Vital breath,” however, might be a better rendering, since önd seems to mean a great deal more than simple respiration. It connotes—in this context, at least—a principle of life and motion very close to the Greek concept of ψυχή (psuchē or psyche). It certainly makes sense that Odin would confer önd on Ask and Embla. As the sovereign god, life itself would be his prerogative to give or to take away. Furthermore, the name *Wōðanaz is ultimately derived from the Indo-European root *wet-, which means “blow” or “inspire.”

  The etymology of the name Hœnir is very uncertain, so for now let us speak solely of his gift. Óðr, like Odin, derives from the Germanic root *wōþ-, which in turn has its origin in the aforementioned Indo-European root *wet-. There are two words in Old Norse spelled óðr. One is an adjective meaning “mad,” “furious,” or “violent”; the other a noun meaning, depending on the context, “wit,” “mind,” “spirit,” “soul,” and also “song” or “poetry.” There is also a god named Óðr, about whom we know little. He is the often-absent husband of Freya, for whom she weeps bitterly. (Unsurprisingly, there have been attempts to argue that Óðr = Odin, but there are problems with this: among other things, why does Snorri clearly treat them as separate gods?)

  Scholars differ in exactly how óðr should be translated. “Inspiration” or “inspired mental activity” are often used. These certainly do an adequate job of conveying the nature of the gift Hœnir gives to man (and the key feature of Odin as well). Kris Kershaw uses the term “ecstasy” to translate óðr56 and this is, in fact, the approach I will adopt—only I prefer the original Greek term ekstasis. Why use a Greek term rather than the untranslated Old Norse original? Part of my approach to understanding Germanic mythic, magical, and philosophic ideas is to set them in a different vocabulary. Indeed, understanding any difficult idea involves expressing it in new and different ways. Óðr means absolutely nothing to Anglophone ears and eyes. But ekstasis is immediately recognizable as the source word for “ecstasy” and “ecstatic.”57

  So, to continue, why is it Hœnir who gives the gift of óðr to Ask and Embla, rather than Odin? The most significant myth about Hœnir (aside from the one in Völuspá) occurs in Ynglinga Saga 4. There, the aftermath of the war between the Æsir and Vanir is said to involve an exchange of hostages. Hœnir (one of the Æsir) is given to the Vanir as a hostage. Surprisingly, they make him a chieftain but are soon disappointed with his job performance. You see, Hœnir is accompanied by the wise Mimir and proves himself, in fact, incapable of making any decisions without Mimir’s counsel. (Rather remarkably, the Vanir respond to this situation by decapitating Mimir.) Edgar Polomé draws from this the very reasonable conclusion that Hœnir is a god dependent upon óðr upon inspiration, in other words. This interpretation is strengthened by the fact that after Ragnarok he “chooses wooden slips for prophecy”58 (i.e., cast the runes; Völuspá 63)—a function also obviously dependent upon óðr. Thus, it seems that óðr is the gift of Hœnir because he is entirely dependent upon it, entirely possessed by it. Whereas Odin, in fact, appears to be the master of it: the *-an- infix in *Wōdanaz suggests “lordship” or “mastery.”

  Things get more complicated with Lodur and his gifts. There is not much controversy surrounding litu góða, which means something like “good color.” Lá is trickier, however. Polomé says that it might be rendered “appearance” or “mien.” But he also argues persuasively that lá may mean “hair,” noting that, “The hair was sacred for the ancient Germans; freely growing hair hanging on the shoulders was characteristic of priests, kings, and women; hair was the vehicle of the hamingja, of the soul, of happiness.”59

  The etymology of the name Lodur is uncertain. Some have suggested that Lodur should be identified with Frey, the Vanic god of virility and prosperity.60 Polomé does not necessarily endorse the idea that Lodur = Frey, but he does seem persuaded that Lodur might be Vanic. He notes the link between the name Lodur and Gothic liudan, “to grow,” and Old Norse lóð meaning “fruit�
�� or “yield.” Polomé also links Lodur with Old Norse ljóðr, meaning “people” or, more specifically “full-fledged members of the ethnic community.” If these linkages mean anything, they seem to suggest that Lodur is a god of fertility, prosperity, and communal blood-ties. Rudolf Simek seems to find this a plausible argument.61 (Both Polomé and Simek emphatically reject the many attempts to argue that Lodur is Loki.) This seems to at least make some sense out of the fact that Lodur’s gifts are purely physical, purely external features.

  3. THE ANTHROPOGENY OF THE PROSE EDDA & ITS RELATION TO THE POETIC EDDA

  Turning to the Prose Edda, many questions arise when the text is examined more closely—and in the light of what we have learned about the passages in the Poetic Edda. In addition to önd, Odin gives líf (life). Now, the odd thing here is that trees are already alive! The pairing of önd (breath) and líf strengthens the idea that we are essentially talking about what the Greeks called ψυχή: a vital breath that animated the body (what Aristotle would call a “source of motion”). The new “aliveness” granted to the trees by Odin thus would seem to refer, at least in part, to the capacity for locomotion—which, as Aristotle recognized, characterizes all animal life.

  Vili’s gifts of vit and hræring seem functionally equivalent to the óðr granted by Hœnir in the Poetic Edda, if vit and hræring are understood respectively as wit/understanding and emotion/ feeling. Certainly these are exhibited by those possessed by óðr, especially if óðr is understood—as I think it should be—as having a conceptual kinship with Greek θυμός—thumos, “spiritedness.”

  Now, Vili means “will.” It derives from Germanic *wiljōn, “desire” or “willpower,” which in turn derives from the Indo-European root *wel-, “wish” or “will.” As I will discuss later, I believe we can learn just as much about the nature of humanity from the gods who conferred gifts on Ask and Embla as we can from the gifts themselves. And this is particularly true in the case of the Prose Edda, where the functions of Odin’s brothers, which we can discern from the meanings of their names, are arguably much clearer.

  A case can be made that Hœnir and Vili are equivalent, or at least that there is a similarity between the two. This follows not just from the rough equivalence of the gifts they give, but it makes philosophical sense as well. As we have seen, Hœnir is unable to act decisively without the inspiration of Mimir. Philosophically, what this seems to express is the dependence of will on óðr. What is will? Quite simply, it is our capacity to alter or change what is to bring it into accord with a conception of what ought to be. Examples would include all sorts of human acts: taking a lump of clay and sculpting something out of it, building a house out of wood or stone, curing a disease, finding the winning strategy in a war, composing a song or a poem (taking sounds or words and bringing some ideal form out of them), etc. But “will” depends upon our capacity to stand outside of ourselves (the literal meaning of ek-stasis) and outside of the immediate moment and receive or register both the Being of things, and be seized by a glimpse of their possible Being, what “ought” to be. This is óðr.

  The source of this “inspiration” is, and has always been, mysterious. One of the things that is significant about the Germanic anthropogeny is that “reason,” “rationality,” or “logic” is not one of the gifts of the gods to man.62 This is at least initially surprising because ever since Aristotle we have thought of rationality as perhaps the central or key characteristic of man. However, if we understand this as the capacity for analytical thought—for analyzing or constructing arguments in support of conclusions—it is important to understand that rationality is fundamentally uncreative. This is a subject that requires a much longer discussion, but putting things briefly: reason can help us figure out how to support an idea with argument. But the ideas themselves do not come from logical inference.

  Ideas arrive on the wings of inspiration, in odd moments, through all sorts of unlikely means and in unlikely situations. They come through dreams, in sudden flashes of thought that arrive as we are bathing or shaving, changing a tire, etc. The case of the chemist Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz (1829– 1896) provides us with a celebrated example of the sort of thing I mean. Kekulé arrived at his theory of the ring shape of the benzene molecule after having a daydream in which he saw a vision of an Ouroboros, a snake biting its own tail. Another discovery of Kekulé’s was inspired by a vision of dancing atoms and molecules experienced while riding on a horse-drawn omnibus in London. Inspiration occurs to everyone, but some are more gifted by Hœnir/Vili than others.63

  The important point to take away from the discussion so far is the dependence of will on óðr, and the nature of óðr/ekstasis as registration of the Being of things, and reception (inspiration) of their possible Being.

  As to Ve, recall that his gifts to Ask and Embla are ásjónu (“physical form”), mál (“speech” or “language”), heyrn (“hearing”), and sjón (“sight”). It will be seen that these are not dissimilar to the gifts of Lodur in the Poetic Edda, in that they have to do entirely with physical qualities or aspects (ásjónu in particular suggests this, reminding us of lá and litu góða). Beyond this, is there any basis for linking Lodur to Ve, as I tried to link Hœnir to Vili?

  4. VE & OPENNESS TO THE SACRED

  The etymology of Ve is certainly interesting. In addition to being the name of a god, among other things Ve also means “shrine” in Old Norse. (We know from Tacitus that often the “shrines” of the ancient Germans were simply sacred spaces or enclosures within nature—an important point, as we shall see.) Ve derives from Germanic *wīhaz, which derives from Indo-European *vīk-, which has to do with things that are “separated,” or acts of separation.

  Edred Thorsson offers the following list of nouns all directly derived from the Germanic root *wīh-:

  1. Old Norse Ve, “shrine”; cognate with Old High German wīh and Old English wīh, also meaning “shrine.”

  2. Old Norse Ve, “grave mound” (in the runic inscriptions of Glavensdrup, Vedelspang, Gottorp, and Vordingborg).

  3. Old Norse Vebönd—the boundaries of the shrine; also used for the enclosure erected around Thing sites.

  4. Old English wéoh—“idol,” “sacred image”

  5. Old Norse Ve—“standard/flag/banner”64

  Another example of a *wīh- word is Old Norse Vear, “the gods.” Of particular interest, however, is a verb derived from *wīh-: *wīhjan, from which are in turn derived the Old Saxon wīhian, Gothic weihan, Old High German wīhen, and modern German weihen. Weihen is normally translated “consecrate,” and all the derivatives of *wīhjan basically suggest this. “To consecrate” means to take together with (con) the sacred (as opposed to the profane: from the Latin profanum, literally “before the sanctuary”65). The consecrated is that which has been put with the sacred.

  One of the fundamental things that characterizes human beings is our ability to separate things from the everyday and to invest them with what Thorsson (drawing on Rudolf Otto) sometimes calls a “numinous” quality. This shows itself most clearly in cases where we make a religious object, such as an idol, or designate something a religious object, such as a holy relic (e.g., objects that belonged to the saints, or objects thought to have been touched by persons regarded as special or holy). But the list given above includes other sorts of things as well.

  A grave mound, for example, is a Ve. What is a grave? It is a plot of earth that has taken on a special, super-natural (above or beyond the natural) significance because a human body is buried in it. Ve can also mean flag, banner, or standard—as in battle standard. This is a piece of cloth that has been invested with special significance because it symbolizes an army or a people. Perhaps also because it has been carried into a number of battles. Perhaps also because it has been touched by personages of great importance, or even stained with their blood.

  As noted above, the term Vebönd was used for the boundaries around a shrine, or around the place of the Thing. In the former c
ase, an area of earth is separated or marked out and invested with special meaning because it is a space in which human beings enter into contact with the divine. The case of the Thing is similar: an area of earth is marked out and made meaningful because it is a place where the laws of the people are invoked, amplified, or applied. Tacitus tells us that a priest opened the Thing with a command for silence (Germania 11). This silence is also a separation: in the Thing enclosure, marked out from the rest of the earth, we are removed from idle chatter, and in the sounds that are heard there the people confronts its own spirit (for the laws are a projection of its spirit). Both cases are super-natural. In both cases an area of the earth, of the natural, is marked off and made into a space in which something above the natural is made manifest: the gods or the laws (and, of course, for our ancestors there was a connection between these).

  The runes also provide us with an example of what is *wīhaz. “Rune” is from the Germanic root *rūn- meaning “secret,” or “whisper.” The runes are not “letters.” The written signs that we typically think of as “runes” merely symbolize the runes, which constitute esoteric ideas that provide a key to understanding the fundamental aspects of reality. But consider the different rune names (in translation): Cattle, Ox, Thorn, Wagon, Torch, Gift, Joy, Hail, Need, Ice, Harvest, Yew Tree, Elk, Sun, Birch, Horse, Day, etc. Each is something “natural.” But each has been imaginatively “separated out” of the natural and made to “stand for” something of which the natural may be an expression, but which transcends the natural itself. So, for example, “cattle” (Fehu) as a rune means cattle, but also something more than cattle: something cattle symbolizes, or something of which cattle is only one, paradigmatic expression.