Aesc bith oferheah, eldum dyre,

Stith on stathule, stede rihte hylt,

Theah him feohtan on firas monige.

Ash is very tall, a beloved ancient,

Thick in its foundation, held right in place,

Although many use it in combat.

This rune takes the shape of the fourth Elder Futhark rune Ansuz. It is the direct descendant of this rune and thus is connected to the Old English rune Os that takes its place as the fourth rune in the Futhorc. In the second chapter we have already discovered that Os is connected to the god Wodan and also to that of wise man or woman. While Os represents the power of speech, Aesc is its direct relative symbolizing the cosmic world tree Yggdrasil on which Wodan hung to gain the insight to the runes. These two runes are connected and form a composite whole thus rounding off the picture of Wodans ordeal, but what of its connection with Germanic shamanism. In the section of Os we know that there was a certain magical practice called galdor, but there is another magical practice in the north called Seith. This practice is more of a highly personal and intuitive form of magic and is very closely connected to that of shamanism. It is believed that the word Seith means to boil or seethe. One of the famous hallmarks of shamanism is astral travel and this can usually be done by heating up ones body i.e. by dancing and thus heating the body up. While Seith was practiced in Scandinavia, but was it known to the Anglo-Saxons? There is linguistic evidence that seems to point to the fact that they did indeed know of this practice.

There is an Old English word Sith which means journey, undertaking, road and even death. I find this to be interesting due to the fact that when a shaman’s soul leaves the physical body it is usually to undertake a journey to the spirit world. Usually this journey is to fetch the lost soul of somebody who is ill and the shaman has to return the soul in order to heal the person in question. The soul is usually stolen by spirits and taken to the underworld hence the land of the dead. This is where the world tree or mountain usually comes into play. The world tree is the cosmic axis by which all worlds are connected and the shaman uses this tree to transverse all the regions within it. We are told in Norse sources that Odin was a practitioner in this magical art. It is interesting that the word death is used in the definition of sith because we are told that when Odin practiced seith he would lay there as if dead and that his spirit would leave his body taking the shape of a bird or animal. In most shamanic practices the soul takes the shape of an animal and this usually depends on what kind of journey was to be undertaken. If one wanted to go to a far off place the form of a bird would be taken or if one wanted to transverse the ocean the form of a fish would be used. The possibilities of this practice are endless. There is also a dark side to sith as it could also be used for ill, but in the northlands there does not seem to be white and black magic. To the Germanic people it seems that magic could be used for both purposes and that it was up to the user to decide on how to use it, but the question of wyrd always had to be taken into account. It must always be remembered that whatever one does comes back threefold, so if one does good deeds the good wyrd will be attracted and it is reversed for ill deeds. I am sure that our ancestors knew of this and accepted the consequences for their actions.

To further understand the picture of sith we also need to look at some other words to help round off its meaning and practice. The word Sid means broad or vast. These two words perfectly describe the astral. The astral goes on forever and the way to understand this concept is to simply close ones eyes. When this is done all we see is blackness that seems never ending. This not only describes the astral but on a smaller personal scale it represents the cosmos. In the trance state of sith one sees with vastness meaning farseeing. This is the same meaning as the modern word Clairvoyance or someone gifted with second sight. It is interesting to note that the Old English word seo, which means pupil of the eye and this word, is the root of seon that means to see, to look and experience. Seo is also the root word of Seothan, which means to seethe or troubled in the mind. This brings us back to the meaning of Seith that is seething. All these meanings together point us in the direction of some sort of ecstatic practice by which one heats up the body to then transverse the worlds and to bring back information. This is classic shamanic practice and as we saw with Lagu the act of movement and chanting are all part of achieving an ecstatic state whereby journeys can be undertaken. It must also be noted that women almost exclusively practiced Seith and that it was considered “shameful” for a man to have taken part in it. Also the goddess Freyja taught this magical practice to Odin.

On a more mundane level Aesc appears as a tree whose branches were used to make spears. Since the branches of the tree are relatively straight they were ideal for making such items. The spear was a very important weapon and was often used in combat just as the rune poem above states. It is also interesting that the spear was one of the symbols of Wodan. He had a spear name Gungnir, which was made by two dwarves and was presented to Wodan, it is the best spear and none can rival it. It has also been said that when people were in combat that they would throw a spear over the enemy shouting “I give you to Wodan”, thus dedicating those who would be slain to the war God. Wodan also used a spear to wound himself while he hung on Yggdrasil and after his sacrifice he discovered the hidden wisdom of the runes. This brings us back full circle to the Ash as the world tree and the keeper of knowledge that makes Aesc a very sacred rune containing all these mysteries within it.

Yr byth aethelinga and eorla gehwaes wyn

And wyrthmynd, byth on wicge faeger,

Faestlic on faerelde, fyrdgeatewa sum.

Bow is with Aetheleings and warriors piercing trouble

And a mark of distinction, on a horse it is fair,

With some war-gear it is steadfast on a journey.

The basic meaning of Yr is bow and the rune poem above states its importance as an important weapon in battle. The shape of the rune clearly looks like a bow with an arrow in the middle. There are no root words in English that will help us to discover the inner mysteries of the rune, so we will have to look at Norse sources to uncover the deeper meaning of Yr. Both Norwegian and Icelandic sources use the same name Yr but both meanings mean Yew. Though both have the same meaning one seems to describe just the tree and the other describes a bow. The Icelandic poem used to describe Yr is very similar to Eoh in the Futhorc; both of these poems mention the Yew trees function as a fire source. On the other hand the Norwegian poem clearly is similar to the English one. It seems that the Old English Yr is nothing more then an extension of its earlier counterpart Eoh and was designed to represent the growing linguistic changes in the language. It just further draws upon the functions and uses of the tree.

Yr and Eoh are connected to each other and both share the same qualities. As we can deduce both are connected with death and the underworld. Both are connected to the gods Wodan and Wuldor, but this rune seems to have more of a connection with Wuldor since his symbol is the bow and arrow. For further information on this rune please see Eoh.

Ior byth eafix, and theah a bruceth fodres on foldan,

Hafath faegerne eard, waetre beworpen,

Thaer he wynnum leofath.

Beaver is a river fish, always enjoying its food on land,

It has a lovely dwelling-place, surrounded by water,

Where it lives in joy.

Ior really has no definitive definition. It is believed to mean beaver but this has not been an accepted meaning. There has also been a reason to link this rune to the world serpent of the Norse myths. The serpents name is Jormungandr and it is this serpent that circles the earth biting its own tale. It is also the archrival of Thor. Jormungandr is the representation of the equator and it is truly amazing that the Norse imagined that it was biting its own tail. This proves to me that while the rest of the Europe thought that the earth was flat the Norse knew that it was round and this description reinforces this belief. Also the shape of this rune is the same as the Norse rune Hagall, which is the English rune Haegl. While Ior and Hagall might have the same shape they are not connected to each other in anyway or are they? I think that this rune has somewhat of a hidden esoteric meaning attached to it. Lets take a look at the possible connection between the two runes.

In chapter three the rune Haegl was connected to Hel the goddess of the underworld and we know that she was one of Loki’s children with a giantess. The heathen English must have known of an afterworld place named hel or did they call it helle? There is a word Hellerune which means sorceress and thus connecting this rune to Haegl by its connotations to the under world realm. My reasoning behind this is that if helle is reference to the land of the dead and rune means secret or mystery it would seem logical that Hellerune would be a female wise woman. If we look at the Eddas for evidence we will find that on Odins under world journeys he often conjures a dead witch or volva to advise him on past and future events. There is no doubt in my mind that the English Hellerune’s were such women who had the gift of prophesy and knew the magical arts of the north. Let’s get back to the mythological connection between these two runes.

If Haegl represents the goddess Hel and Ior represents the world serpent then there seems a logical reason why this rune has the same shape as the Norse Hagall. I believe that the Anglo-Saxons knew of the myth of Loki’s children and this is just a cleaver way they encrypted it into their Futhorc. By keeping the original shape of the Elder Futhark Haegl and adding the new version with a different name they forever connected the two together by a common mythic theme. This is of course speculation but we will never know for sure if our heathen ancestors, foreseeing the coming of Christianity, wanted to save their traditional lore for future generations and encrypted them into the rune and other older poems.

On a more spiritual level Ior once again symbolizes the duality of wyrd. It tells us that a beaver lives happily in the water but enjoys its food on land. We can take this to mean that when we travel in the astral we receive knowledge, which we then take back with us to our normal consciousness. This in turn feeds us until we once again need to return to the ether to gain more insights. Ior is truly a wonderful and fascinating rune and there needs to be much more research done to unlock its immense power.