Haukur wrote:

>Now then.
>
>I see people have started suggesting
>to each other _which_ Edred Thorsson
>books they should be reading ;)
>
>I don't know what good books in English
>(most major works are in the Scandinavian
>languages, and some in German) about runes
>are available but it seems quite impossible
>to me that they were written by Edred Thorsson.
>
>I've just found my copy of "FUTHARK - A Handbook
>of Rune Magic" and read a few pages. Let me quote:
>
>"The I-rune ... does not represent matter, but rather
>a concept of antimatter, which, when combined with the
>energy flowing from Muspellsheimr, [sic] leads to the
>formation of what we call "matter" (Midhgardhr).
>... In many ways this mystery is the force of attraction,
>gravity, inertia, entropy in the multiverse."
>
>If you are reading texts like this you are certainly
>not learning much about Old Norse or Germanic use of
>runes. What the author seems to be doing is ransacking
>physics and runic lore for words he can stuff into his
>metaphysical system. What, pray tell, does gravity have
>to do with entropy? What, pray tell, does either one
>have to do with the I-rune?

Nothing, which is why I don't recommend the vast majority of
Thorsson's books - however, I have to agree with the positive
assessment of *half* of _Runelore_. The first portion, "Historical
Lore," is excellent, and my only disagreements are a few spots where
I think he presents theory as fact. However, the second portion,
"Hidden Lore" is as ridiculous as _FUTHARK_ and 95% of the other
books on runes out there.

I've read several of R.I. Page's books on the subject, and I think he
goes a bit far in thinking the runes were not heavily used for magic,
as it seems all evidence points towards regular magical use. Also,
while agreeing with many of his points, I found his writing style
incredibly tedious. The major point I agree with, though, is that we
know very little about what any possible magic uses would have been.
What has survived consists of: the Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem, the
Norwegian Rune Rhyme, the Icelandic Rune Poem, the Rúnatals portion
of Hávamál, a few stanzas in Sigdrífumál and Gróagaldr, the
Abecedarium Nordmanicum, thousands of engravings (but few complete
fúÞórk sets) and a few references in sagas and poetry to the use of
runes. However, with most books on runes, you're lucky to even get
translations of these few valuable references, and everything else
they write is pure speculation.

(Incidentally, I will continue to think any system of runic magic is
speculative until someone shows me how to use runes to calm a stormy
sea, free myself if bound, and seduce any maiden I choose.)

For that matter, the "common" names used for the runes (fehu, uruz,
etc) are rather poor Proto-Germanic reconstructions, and I don't even
see the point for them when the poems give actual names: the
Anglo-Saxon poem gives names for 29 runes in their set and the
Norwegian and Icelandic poems give names for the 16 runes in the
younger set. Since all 24 elder runes are also part of the
Anglo-Saxon version, it doesn't take much effort to simply translate
the other 8 eight into Old Norse (except peorð, for which I can't
decent evidence regarding what it should be, although I have a loopy
theory).

The only other popular book on runes I've found at all useful, is
_Helrunar_ by Jan Fries. I don't really recommend it, because the
author presents all theories on the runes equally, and I don't find
some of the theories even worth mentioning. However, he's aware of
just how speculative all the theories are, and usually does his best
to keep that in mind. As a result, he presents some information
which other writers don't, and I found much of that book to be great
food for thought, if nothing else.

Finally, to answer Dennis' question about the eolhx/elgr rune, the
phonetic value is that of the ending -r which is a common
derivational ending on nouns in Old Norse/Icelandic. The commonly
accepted theory is that the -r ending comes from the same
Indo-European root as the -s ending in English and Latinate
languages, which is a -z ending in just a few others (I think the
Baltic languages, but I'm not certain). It's a completely different
sound from the dental (alveolar) trill of the common European "r",
and is instead a palatal (velar) sibilant. (If anyone knows how to
rephrase this for non-linguists, I'd appreciate it).

-Selv
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