After the worlds were formed, and things set in their proper places, Alfather watched them with the wonder of their beauty, and he thought on what he and his kin had made. That living things were ordered for growth, for thriving and coming together and throwing their seeds again; that even the stones were forever forming in Jorth's fires, being thrown up to the surface to wear down again in Njorthr's restless waters; that the newly formed stars were set to such regular dance, and Mani to wax and wane to the tide's rising and falling; all of it was miraculous, all of it was a wonder to the eyes and ears and mind. And when he thought upon Laerath, and upon how all order in the worlds, it seemed, reflected there in her - how it could be seen within her own orderly growth, her own outspreading, and her own decay - he wondered at what set him apart from her. He wondered at what she held within her to cause such order, he wondered if he could not know it for himself.
Alfather then went to her, and he asked her aide, and asked if she could not show him what he did not himself as yet understand. That primal urge that had caused him to create, and his fascination for the creation he had made, and the order it fell into, seemed to him something natural to his being, yet beyond the grasp of his understanding. He stripped away all that he had, and gave it all to her as pledge, if she would but reveal to him what made her seem to understand it all, what made her seem so wise and so steady, so anchored in the worlds yet not quite of them, so beyond the merely natural. He climbed into her branches, and tied himself to her trunk, and as she had not yet answered, nor given any sign, he said, as he had shed all other things of the worlds, even the mind, "I give then my self to my Self," and there he hung, for nine long nights, one day and night for every world in his creation, with nothing but the wind for his food, and nothing but the myst for drink, awaiting.
When everything was gone out of him entire, when his soul itself felt filled with nothing but ginnungap's void, there came to his mind's eye an ordering like a vast webwork, a vision of the order in the worlds he saw below him. The lines of energy that upheld the worlds, that ran through them and crossed and re-crossed and hummed, they seemed the very stuff of life itself, and they began to order themselves into individual sounds that combined together or fell alone, each with its own unique bit of the universal energy, and each with its own being.
He saw it all then, clear, with an awakened awareness that suddenly understood, and had realized its own power. That energy flowing up through her roots and sap and bark into his soul lit up his spirit with the higher understanding of order and architecture in the creation, and he called out with it in joy and awe.
The worlds ordered themselves like a wondrous mysterious song, like long strands of poetry broken here and there and taken up again. They sang and hummed and shone in an overwhelming orchestration of joy, they moved forward and backward and around only through the flickering sense of time thrown by the stars - and even the stars were dancing, humming and shedding their own songs. Her energy, her othr, she had shared with him and let him see it all, not bit by bit but whole and humming and alive.
In gratitude for her gift, he promised to share it with his true kin forevermore. When he came down again he knew the sounds, which he called runes, or mysteries, that when tied with othr held the worlds together, or could verily shape them anew. With them inside his heart other songs came to his mind, threads of cause and effect that ruled the way of things in each of the worlds, that set the order for the lives of his kin.
Soon after he found a way to share it with those that were worthy, through need or through kinship or through fatherly love, and he has shared it ever since.
The Elder Futhark is comprised of 24 letters that not only represent sounds, but also energies. It may be used for common writing in any spoken language, such as transliterated English, Swedish, and so forth (but one must be aware that whatever combination of letters is being made, there may be unforeseen outcomes through that combination). Some well-recognized symbols are combinations of runes as well.
The order of the futhark is generally held to begin with fehu and end with othala. Other orders have been designed and used for specific purposes. The sound of each rune, and their most basic and practical energies are listed below. These are by no means the all and soul of the futhark, merely the minimal surface for purpose of giving a basic understanding to the casual reader. The pronunciations given are for those with a knowledge of common English.
= fay-who wealth
= ooh-rooz persistence
= thuh-ree-sahz defense
= ahn-suz inspiration
= rye-thoh right motion
= kay-nahz creativity
= gay-boh giving
= vuhn-yoh weal
= hah-gah-lahz formation
= now-theez absence
= ees-uh will
= yair-uh cycle
= eye-vahz sacrifice
= pear-throw chance
= ahl-gahz defense
= so-vay-loo beneficence
= tea-vahz victory
= bear-can-oh birch
= a-vahz cooperation
= mahn-nahz thought
= lah-gooz flow
= ing-vahz fertility
= dah-gahz dawning
= ohth-ah-lah security
The spiritual arts of every culture begin at their roots with the immediacy and intimacy of healing. In the Northern Tradition, healing reflects the giving nature of the Elder Kin, and their society based upon gifting in every form. Those folk that feel a natural empathy to others, or a natural gift of insight, or uncommon ability, will sometimes take up the healing arts. Women and men both naturally fall into two broad fields of expertise, and tend to follow what suits their inner nature. Both forms overlap, naturally, in many places, and sometimes a person is known to be highly skilled in aspects of both forms.
There are those that work with the deeply natural elements of field, forest and waters, and with the forces of emotion, attraction and repulsion - and most prominently, love. This form of work is called seithr. Their work calls upon the natural forces, and the helpful vaettir or land spirits that dwell within plants, trees, waters, and stones. They work within natural cycles of nature and orlog to move them forward, interrupt their current tendencies, or start them anew. The work is most frequently done in practical forms, such as; making plant or animal based medicines, clearing water, soothing the minds and hearts of the distressed, locating water wells and fertile fields, and so forth. Their more specialized work is in hamr-faring to aide the spirit, working with the fylgja or disir of the distressed, organic symbology, and looking into the cycles for signs of ill-moving trends, a form of natural prophecy. Often this prophecy is aided by careful attention to growing and harvesting cycles, cycles of mood and social interaction, and often natural materials such as stones, reflective waters, leaves and branches, and fire. Generally, seithr is an acute observation of trends and cycles in order to gauge their flow, and alter that flow with will and love if they are found to be destructive. Health and wholeness of the community, the individual, and the land is the optimum outcome.
The other form of healing work is not as common, as it is suited to the more contemplative, less social type of folk. It works through the manipulation of natural, and man-made, forces through the specialized language of the futhark and related symbology, and through deeper states of meditation. This work relies on direct connections between the practitioner and the sources of othr, whether the source be an individual's fulltrui, his fylgja or disir, or even energies located within one of the other worlds. Those working in galdr are often musicians, poets, philosophers and warriors, as language, interaction, sound and song are worked into combinations that aide, turn aside or remove naturally, or involuntarily, moving cycles. The will is impressed into the cycle to change its pattern through sound, or when internalized, through vibration. Prophecy is worked, and can be quite far-reaching or overarching, through runestafir that are made in various forms, as well as through the observation or use of naturally occurring materials or elements such as weather, stone and fire. Generally, galdr work is a tying together of subtle forces with will and othr in order to solicit their cooperation toward an intended goal.
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