poem

My first online course is here!

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I’ve finally entered the world of independent online teaching with my first course on Runes and Poetry!

This course is my big epiphany in its most significant manifestation so far! Over three years ago, I had the lightning-strike idea that the rune names and futhark order for the Elder Futhark runes preceded the existence of rune-staves and runic writing. How could that be? Only one possible way: as tool to codify, teach, and promote the nascent system of early Germanic alliterative poetry, which certainly originated before the Proto-Germanics had writing. Having developed a poetry built on matching stressed sounds, it would be natural for the Proto-Germanics to name the sounds of their language in order to talk about them. (E.g., “This line alliterates on Hagalaz with a final stress on Tīwaz.”) The poetry itself would be the natural method for handing these names down the generations, in the form of the first “rune” poem. And when the early Germanics finally chose to adopt writing at some later time, these names for the sounds—and a canonical order for them in their “rune” poem—were already on hand to be applied to the rune-staves. (I’ve got an academic article eventually coming out that discusses this in more detail.)

I immediately recognized that all this was a great idea for modern alliterative poetry. Indeed, the sounds of modern English also had be named so that today’s alliterative poetry could become all that it could be, and the runes were equally an ideal vehicle for this. And so by reforming the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, I created the American Futharch, the first full-fledged runic system in centuries, fully integrated with alliterative poetry, just as I envisioned it for the Elder Futhark and its oral precursor.

And now you can join me in my new course and learn runes integrated with the traditional poetic key. It’s called “Sacred English: American Runes and Alliterative Poetry,” and it’s a great way to turbo-charge your rune-writing knowledge of authentic rune writing with the American Futharch, while simultaneously learning to write simple alliterative poetry.

Instruction starts September 25, and last day to enroll this semester is September 27.

For more details, see the page on my American Futharch website:

https://americanfutharch.com/sacred-english

or just jump straight to the course page and enroll at my new Skaldic Eagle Flight School:

https://skaldiceagle.thinkific.com/courses/sacred-english

Enjoy!

The Six Treasures

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It’s way past time for a new poem. My aim now is to update this blog at least weekly, and this may be chaotic at first, but here goes…

In the Prose Edda, there are many fine stories that unfortunately have no poetic counterparts in the Poetic Edda or other ancient sources. One of these is the tale of the creation of the treasures of the gods. Thus I have made a modern English poetic version of it in the ljóðaháttr style that goes to the point where the gods judge the treasures — it does not include Brokk’s attempt to collect on the wager. (Generally, Old Norse names in the poem are rendered in Old Norse, but not always — you’ll probably notice the strange characters.)

I presented this poem at the East Coast Thing’s Skaldic Competition in 2011, where it won first place in the spoken word category. It has also been a favorite of the kindred I’m in.

The poem is called “The Six Treasures”

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Nine Noble Virtues

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It’s time for another poem.

In the Poetic Edda, there are some examples of numbered lists, where the speak counts out the items. In Hávamál, the speaker relates 18 magic spells he knows. In Sigrdrífumál, Sigrdrífa gives 11 pieces of advice to Sigurðr. In Grógaldr, the dead woman Gróa sings 9 magic spells to protect her son on a dangerous journey.

This poem was inspired by those counting list poems. It’s also in the fornyrðislag style, although in this one I use three syllable lines more often than usual. It is based on what is probably the most well-known list in modern American Asatru, with my own interpretations and descriptions for each of items, some of which make references to the mythology. There is a strange word in this poem that most will not be familiar with and for which a dictionary probably won’t help: ginn-holy. James Chisholm used this to represent the Old Norse ginnheilög (which means “most holy”) in his translation of the Poetic Edda (in Völuspá 6, for instance). That’s probably what inspired me to use it in a poem. (Actually, there’s probably a few more strange words in here… perhaps another time I’ll make a glossary post to this blog of such words and their meanings.)

The poem is called “Nine Noble Virtues”

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