Historical Setting: 793 C.E. Jutland
When my question about writing in this new world is finally passed along in translation to the seiðr, the wise woman shows us the carvings on her walking stick. The seiðr calls them “Runes.” But I perceive this as some kind of numbering system. These people are near a hub for world trade. That was how it was when I came on that journey with my son and his partner. That journey we took nearly two hundred years ago began at a world trading post at the mouth of the Rhine. Now, here I am north, in this winter-hardened land. Yet, all around us are influences of distant traditions, not only of the ancient Celts and Christians, but little treasures and traditions from all four corners of the wind. The seiðr is wearing a brooch carved from jade with a distinctly eastern design.
I ask a simple question about the runes on the cane, expecting the answer will be about the need for recording numbers for trade. But not so.
With Marian’s translations the elder seiðr tells me runes are each complete ideas in their own way. Each is poetry. They are more than letters on a page would be – more than the writing of Christians.
“Runes each have a depth. It is not just a fraction of a word as is a letter in languages of Roman and Greek. A rune is already a completeness of thought.”
I’m thinking of that far traveler who imagined a Sphinx while staring off a ship’s prow considering ancient omnipotence. It riled the traditional wood carver. So do carved glyphs from faraway places teach these people to savor language that can be chiseled in with straight lines?
She points to one little set of lines on her staff and tells me its meanings. “This one is bravery, and here is Odin and the gods.”
I point to one and ask.
“That one means ‘Auroch’” She says.
“Auroch?”
“Wild ox”
“I believe an auroch hasn’t been seen on earth for more than two centuries.” I know these things.
Marian translates.
The elder woman asks and Marian translates, “And how would you know something like that when you seem to be a man who knows nothing at all?”
I know enough of these words to know Marian’s translation was rough.
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 