Daeg byth drihtens sond, deore mannum,

Maere Meotodes leoht,

Myrgth and tohiht eadgum and earmum, eallum brice.

Day is the gods message, dear to men,

Measures splendid light,

Mirth and joy to the rich and the poor,

Useful to all.

Day is the last rune of the third Aett and of the Elder Futhark. In its very basic form this rune explains the joys of daylight and all the benefits that it brings to us. Days were a way of reckoning times and seasons much as they are used today but in the times of our ancestors they were very important. The lengthening of days would tell the people that planting time was near and the waning ones would mark the onset of harvesting the crops. Also, the waxing and waning daylight hours would mark important festivals such as the solstices and equinoxes, which were also connected with the sun, the bringer of light. In traditional Norse lore the sun and day were seen as separate divinities. The sun was seen as a fair goddess who rode on a wagon through the heavens but had to ride swiftly due to the fact that she was being chased by a wolf. Hence this explains why sun travels so fast through the sky. Day on the other hand was seen as a god and his father was called Dawn and his mother was Night. He also drives a chariot which is pulled by a horse named Shiny mane, which illuminates the earth. The rune poem above eludes to this myth in that it states in the beginning that: Day is gods message, dear to men. It is my belief that the Old English knew of this myth and encoded it in the poem above.

There is another mystery to this rune and it is the use of the phrase: Measures splendid light. In the poetry of the Anglo-Saxons the word measurer was used to describe the Christian God but lets examine the word a little more to see what mysteries might be contained within it. The word Meotud means fate or creator. Its root word Met means to measure and to mete out. As was mentioned before in Chapter One the Germanic word for fate was Wyrd. It is said that the Norns, Fates or Wyrd sisters have been around since the beginning of time and that the gods are even subject to their power. It is they who weave the web of Wyrd to which all things must succumb to. We can also see that in early Anglo-Saxon poetry that Wyrd was used by itself to describe fate, but in later writing we see that the term became connected to the power of Christ. Thus we have a melding of heathen and Christian thought patterns. The word Meotud itself also was christianized and meant to mean the power of the Christian god, but the roots go deeper then the Christian religion. In the Norse Eddas the fates are called the Norns and their names are Urd, Verdandi and Skuld, which can be taken to mean past, present and future.

Unfortunately there are no surviving English names for these sisters but in Southern Germany there seems to be three goddess who very much resemble the Norns. The names of these sisters are Einbet, Wilbet and Werbet. It is said that the people would ask them about what to do in certain situations and these three goddess would give them advice on the matters in question. The first of these goddess is named Einbet and it is said that she Ordered Destiny and was the highest of the three. The second, Wilbet was said that she had the power to grant what was wished for. Finally, the third goddess was Werbet and her domain was the one of Chaos and all the changes in life. It is very interesting in that these three powerful goddess have such similar aspects of their Norse counterparts. Thus to round off the picture of this rune poem I believe that the measurer mentioned in this poem is actually the Wyrd sisters in their function of measuring the time for us all on earth. By this I am trying to say that everyone be they rich or poor has the same end, meaning death. Day represents not the finality but one of hope and rebirth. Since the sisters in their guise as night helped to create the cosmos and everything in it would seem fitting that they also gave us rebirth. It is believed that when we die we are first judged by these sisters and our afterlife is then meted out to us based on our deeds here on earth. Thus after our lessons from this life are dealt with then we are reborn to learn new ones. In this Day is one of the most powerful runes that Woden discovered and its secrets lie deep within the realm of the gods, being the perfect rune to close the Elder Futhark. It reminds us that when we think that our quest is finished we suddenly find ourselves back where we started.

The last 24 runes followed the Elder Futhark exactly with a few name and character changes due to linguistic and customs changes, but their meanings are still in keeping with the old Germanic lore. The next 5 runes are additions to the Futhorc due to expanding phonetics of the English language. Just as the Younger Futhark of the Norse eventually ended up with only 16 characters the English runes ended up with 29 runic characters. Many of the additional five were modeled after earlier runes in the Futhorc and are connected with their original counterparts, as we shall see later in this chapter. Some of the characters also seem to have the names and shapes of Scandinavian runes but their meanings are different. Lets take a look at the final five runes of the Anglo-Saxon system and see what wisdom they have to teach us

Ac byth on eorthan elda bearnum flaesces fodor,

Fereth gelome ofer ganotes baeth,

Garsecg fandath hwaether ac haebbe aethele treowe.

Oak is the earths old man, burning it is fleshes food,

Faring frequently over the gannets bath,

The sea finds out whether the oak is a noble tree.

The most fundamental meaning of this rune is Oak. The Oak was a very sacred tree to those living in Northern Europe and had special connotations with lightning. It seems that almost every Indo-European tribe connected the Oak to the thunder god. For example the tribes close to the Baltic Sea called this god Perun, while the ancient Germans called him Donnar. The thunder god Donnar is the same god worshipped by the Saxons under the name Thunor and the Norse name Thor. It seems that the connection with the thunder god and the Oak is a very simple one. Oak trees naturally attract lightning and on Continental Europe were some of the largest and oldest living trees. This tree has a reputation for living to a ripe old age and for that reason is attached to wisdom. As the tree grows from a sapling to full grown its bark becomes wrinkled much like an old human face and as we know the elderly people are the ones who have the most knowledge and experience. The rune poem above further reinforces this notion of the oak being wise by stating that it is the “Earths old man”. So Ac is connected to the god Thunor and wisdom but what of its other meanings alluded to in the poem? The rune poem is once again giving us hints into the function and use of the Oak in a threefold manner.

The second clever kenning is that of fleshes food, but what does this exactly mean? Oak wood is the best wood to burn in a fire because it burns hot and gives off much heat. To the old people of the Northlands this wood must have been of great importance, for it kept them warm and dry in the frigid winter months. So what of the kenning mentioned above? It seems logical that if people used this wood for fires that they also would have cooked food over the flames. Thus the Oak would have provided heat and nourishment to comfort the people. Also wild woodland creatures ate the acorns that fell out of the trees thus giving them sustenance ensuring their survival. This in turn meant the survival of the tribes of the northlands, which depended on wild game to feed their families or clans.

The third meaning of the rune is that of sea faring. Many ships were built using planks of oak. This would only seem natural since its wood is very hard and sturdy. As we saw in the last chapter the sea was very important to the livelihood of the people living so close to it. When people left for a fishing or war expedition it was never really certain if one would return. The sea was held with great reverence and awe so it seems natural that the people would try to appease the sea by giving it offerings to ensure a safe return. An observer who wrote about Saxon seafarers in the fifth century who states that they sacrificed prisoners to the sea by casting lots further backs this up. In the later Norse sagas it was said that when people drowned that Ran, the sea goddess, would catch them in her net and take them to her realm under the sea. Could the Saxons have had a god or a goddess of the sea? I believe that the answer is yes. In this rune poem there is the name Garsecg that means the sea, but this word is actually two words put together to describe the ocean. The first part of the word is Gar and it means spear or dart, while Secg means sedge, man or warrior. We can roughly deduce that Garsecg means, “spear warrior”. Could this be a kenning for some sort of ocean god whose name has been lost in time? There seems to be a late German tradition from the poem Rabenschlacht about a sea giantess who is the grandmother of Wayland the smith and her name was Wachilt. It is said that she dwelt at the bottom of the ocean. Perhaps the “spear warrior” in this rune poem isn’t mentioning a sea god but a goddess but all this is speculation as to whether the Anglo-Saxons knew about this tradition.

On another note there might be another sea goddess worshiped by the Angles and that goddess being Geofon. Geofon means ocean or sea. It seems very strange to me, as there is a Norse goddess who has the name Gefjon. She is mentioned in both the Prose Edda and the Saga of the Ynglingas. Both stories relate that she was a giantess and had four sons in the shape of oxen that she used to plough land from Sweden and placing it in Denmark, thus creating the island of Seeland in Demark and the Lake of Maelaren in Sweden. The name of the two goddess are remarkably similar and it is my belief that the Angles, who came from the country now called Denmark, must have known this story and brought their sea goddess with them to Briton.

Ac represents the awesome power of growth. The acorn could represent the cosmic egg which contains all the powers of the universe and when it opens that force is released thus aiding in the creation of all things in the cosmos. That power is seen here on earth when the acorn falls and after many years an ancient tree stands in its very place of conception. I find it interesting that Thunor is connected to the rune because his symbol is lightning. Lightning is an awesome power of nature and its heat is hotter then that of the sun. It has the power to create and to destroy, but on a cosmic scale Thunors energy is one of the driving forces that help to create the cosmos alongside that of the other creative gods. With his hammer, which represents the powers of wyrd both creative and destructive, he truly is a remarkable god protecting the human race from the giants, which represent chaotic energies. This power is held within the rune Ac and it should be respected and treated with care.