Heil Susan,

> Vala is a pebble or stone? How does that, if at all, relate

to "vala" in

> refering to a woman? Or to the little bone that is used for

divination?

You're thinking of the word "völva" (prophetress); in Old Icelandic,
that word used to get confused with "vala" (pebble), because they
have common forms in declension. Today, only "vala" (pebble) survives
as a popular word, while "völva" is a recognized, but little-used
revived word (with a reconstructed, more regular declension).

The thing is, you shouldn't be bothering yourself with that document;
it's meant for German-speakers, who're already familiar with umlauts
from their own language ("umlaut" is a German term after all). There
is no need yet to even know what an umlaut is, for any student here.

I wrote that document as a guideline for German-speakers, because
some list members were complaining about us using only English as
reference. I have another document, an etymology guide, in the works.
However, since this line of work has apparently not been noticed by
the people it was intended for, but rather confused those it wasn't
really intended for, I won't continue it unless asked to.

Óskar