The lines above are describing worth and wyrd together as a composite whole. By this I mean when good wyrd is attracted it creates positive changes in ones life and therefore it adds value and/or worth to the person attracting it and this in turn spills over to ones children or family. So as we can see each action that we take in life affects not only ourselves but it also affects those around us. In today's world so many people are into self-gratification and do not think twice about the steps that they take in order to get what they want or desire. By doing this they overlook that everything they do affects not only them but also their families and this can lead to grave consequences such as bankruptcy or unhappiness. Thorn tells us to be wise and to think about the impact our decisions can have not only on ourselves but our whole families as well as communities. On a different note we are in charge of our wyrd and it is up to us as individuals whether we choose to change our personal wyrd or not. Lines 8-12 in the EMM mirror this belief:

God is everlasting to us,

Never changing a families wyrd, nor a single persons torment,

Disease or old age, emptiness,

Or the sadness in his spirit, yet he seems as he is,

Patient chief of a tribe.

This further reinstates that we are in control of our lives. We have the capacity to change and it is up to us to make the first steps. Wyrd just deals out what we have attracted. So many of us just let torment and unhappiness run our lives and that suffering can have grave consequences on our health and families. We in turn go to physicians who give us medications to help us to heal, but how can we heal ourselves when the root of the problem has not been discovered? We deal with those emotions and sicknesses as long as we continue to stay in a rut, never changing and asking ourselves how we could make things better. Wyrd just waits for us to make those steps and if we take them our lives will change, but at the end of the day it is up to us as individuals to make things possible in our lives and begin to heal ourselves.

Wyrd was seen as the force behind the entire natural phenomenon that takes place in our lives, the heavens and the world around us. This dynamic force was seen as duality, by this I mean to say that every force or emotion has an opposite and this opposing force mirrors it. Take for instance summer and winter, light and dark, love and hate, life and death. Each force, in having its opposite polarity, counteracts each other and therefore creates a balance. So too we must try to achieve a balance in our lives and the world around us. The power of understanding this duality is hidden within Thorn.

Thorn represents the Wyrd Sisters; they are the Anglo-Saxon equivalent to the Norse Norns. The Norns were Urd, Verdandi and Skuld, past, present and future respectively. It is they who weave the webs of wyrd and those webs determine our lives as well as all life and energy in our sphere and the cosmos. Everything, including the gods, is subjected to the powers of wyrd. The hammer of Thunor represents this power and whenever he throws his hammer it makes its cycle and always returns to his hand. This is the same with wyrd, whatever we throw out always returns back to us. This is the most basic concept of wyrd or karma. I believe that it is no mistake that Thorn is in the same shape as Thunors hammer.

Os bith ordfruma aelcre spraece,

And eorla gehwam eadnys and tohiht.

Wisdom's help and the wise mans benefit,

And to every person a blessing and hope.

Os is a very mysterious rune, within this rune are contained the inner shamanic mysteries of the Northern Tradition. Os is connected to another variant word in Anglo-Saxon, this word being Esa. Esa is old English variant of the Old Norse word Asa. This word was the plural form of Aesir. This was the name for one of the clan of gods. The Aesir were the Gods of fire and air, hence their association with war and justice. So this proves to me that the Angles and the Saxons believed in this set of gods. One of the chiefs of this clan was Woden, and this rune belongs to him. In the old lands of the north, he was the god of war, the dead, storms and also god of occult wisdom. This wisdom is spiritual as well as conventional; it is the wisdom of the northern scalds or scops that were poets and singers of the myths and oral traditions of the time. Many were also the priests who served the gods and went around the countryside's practicing the arts of healing and divination. But in order to fully understand this rune and the mysteries woven within it, we will need to unweave it in order to reweave it with the proper knowledge drawn out of it.

The rune poem starts out by saying that divinity is the source of all speech. The divinity is personified. But who is this divinity with such power? If we go back to the Norse Eddas, we find a myth within it called the Havamal; this means Song of the High One. This is one of Wodens lays, and concealed within it is where he hung himself from the world tree and discovered the runes. Each of the runes has a phonetic value and hence a sound connected with it. When we put each phonetic sound together we get sound and hence speech. There is a form of magic that is connected to the use of runic phonetics and it is called galdor. Galdor means sound, song, incantation, spell and enchantment. All the just mentioned words have something to do with the voice. So each rune has a vibration and sound. So we can deduce that Woden is the father of speech in the Germanic countries and is the divinity meant in this rune poem.

The wisdom in the rune poem seems almost as if it were personified. We need to put the whole sentence into context before we can deduce that wisdom is in fact personified. In order to find the inner meaning of Os we will need to decipher the word Witena. This word in Anglo-Saxon means wise man, prophet and soothsayer. This word is related to the Old Norse Vitki, which means roughly the same. It gets more interesting the deeper we go. The root of the word Witena is Wite. This word means punishment, torture, plague, and injury. Another word connected to Witena is Wita. Wita means sage, wise man and elder. It is fitting that words of wisdom and prophecy are connected to this word. These words bring the meaning of this rune a little more out of the dark. To me the words above describing the word Witena seem to point to something of a shamanic origin. We have words such as soothsayer or prophet, punishment and torture. All shamanic experiences all over the world involve some sort of torture in order to gain their knowledge. Be it symbolic death or isolation. Just as Woden hung himself on the World Tree in isolation in order to gain the appropriate knowledge needed to discover the hidden knowledge that he was seeking. This is a classic case of shamanic ecstasy. So this rune poem seems to explaining the function of this rune as being one of shamans. This rune is reminding us of our connection to this system of belief that is shared in most tribal cultures.

Wodens character so far seems to be shrouded in mystery. Who is this god of storms, battle and death? In order to discover his true nature we will need to look into the root meanings of his name. The root word for his name is Wod meaning senseless, mad and raging. Another root word is Woda meaning madman, storm and flood. Hence giving us insight into the character of Woden. Senseless and raging can be used to describe shamanic ecstasy, and being associated with storms and wind, he is therefore the god of speech. Woden must have been the god of the ancient northern shamans. He had a horse that could travel over water and down into the underworld. This horse had eight legs and it has been mentioned that the eight legs symbolize four men carrying a casket and hence his connection with the dead.

Woden is mentioned in several old Germanic sources giving us further insight into his character. He is mentioned in the second Merseberg Charm form Germany. In this charm he heals the wounded leg of Balders horse. The Anglo-Saxon Nine Herb Charm mention Woden as the one who stands over nine poisons and casting the glory twigs and driving out the disease within a person. In the EMM lines 131-132 he is mentioned as the god of battle that men sacrificed to:

Men hollow a sacrifice, heathen feud.

Woden prepares for battle, almighty splendor.

The above passage keeps in practice with ancient Germanic traditions. We know that the ancient Germans sacrificed men as well as weapons for victory in battle. It is my belief that the ancient Anglo-Saxons brought this old custom with them when they traveled to England. Woden is indeed a complex character. But none the less we can deduce that he was the god of healing, a singer of myth and teacher of occult wisdom.

In order to put the rune poem into context we could say wisdom's help and the wise mans comfort, is Wodens help to the wise mans comfort and to every person a blessing and a hope. This means that wise men used the help of Woden in their verbal charms to benefit the people of their tribe. The rune poem could be rewritten like this:

Divinity is the source of all speech,

Wodens help and wise mans benefit,

To every person a blessing and hope.

Os is also closely connected with the Thing, which was the old Germanic court. It was in the Thing that the court cases were heard and judgement cast on individuals. It is my personal belief that runes played an important part in the court cases. The EMM lines 138-140 reinforce the importance of runes in counsel:

In counsel shall man speak, engrave runes,

Sing lays, earn praise,

Judgement put forth, the day hastens.

Doing the right invocation and knowing how to engrave runes, singing the correct charm and earning the praise of the gods, took skill and training. This was the domain of Woden. Even though he was not the main god at the Thing he was still important none the less, because it was through him that the wise men to the ancient tribes learned the art of rune craft and galdor craft.