The Runes as an aspect of Northern European Culture
By Shaun Brassfield-Thorpe (extracted from his book An Introduction
to Rune Lore - Volume One)
It is important to realise that while in some ways Stav is the tradition
of one specific family, the Hosling (or Hafskjold family), it also represents
in a wider extent a continuing aspect of a cultural worldview that was
once common across Northern Europe, and is itself drawn from a far wider,
Indo-European culture of the distant past. Part of this can be seen if
we look at some words and terms, for example the names of the rune staves,
and consider these words by examining Indo-European languages. Stav is
a Norwegian tradition but this book is written in English. Both English
and Norwegian are Indo-European languages with a common ancestry and origin.
This can be seen if we compare some of the terms we use in Stav in Modern
English and Modern Norwegian and then trace them back linguistically -
for example, one term we use is "Thrall" (in English) or "Trel" (in Norwegian)
- this refers to a mindset (someone with a dependent or "slave" mentality)
and also to a combat strategy in the Stav martial art. At first glance,
"Thrall" and "Trel" seem both similar and different words. A little knowledge
of the development of the English and Norwegian languages sheds some light
on this. In both Old English (Anglo-Saxon) and Old Norse (or Icelandic),
the sound "th" was written with a rune - Þ. English, as it developed
as a language, retained the "th" sound but abandoned the "Þ" character.
Norwegian developed differently, an the "th" sound itself disappeared,
becoming in time a "t" sound - So a modern English speaker pronounces the
name of the Thunder God as "Thor" whereas most Norwegians would say "Tor".
If we look at the words "Thrall" and "Trel" we find that in both Old English
/ Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse / Icelandic, the word was spelled "Þræll".
So in spite of apparent differences in modern speech, we can see that our
Northern European languages were once very similar.
Language very often can be a most useful tool for examining not only
how people spoke or wrote but also how they thought, how their paradigm
or view of the world was formed. Here we shall just examine a few terms
that are connected with time, the day and night etc. These may shed a little
light on the way in which our ancestors viewed the world and how we may
use the Stav teachings to change our perception of things in the world
around us.
This book is written in a language called English. Why is the language
called English? Because it is the language that is used by English people
who live in England (as well as of course a great many other people worldwide).
The term "English" both for the language and for the people of this region
stems back to the Angles and Saxons (and Jutes and Frisians etc) who settled
in England many centuries ago and are commonly called Anglo-Saxons. These
people were the first English people, and the first English speakers, even
though their language (called Anglo-Saxon or Old English) was very different
from Modern English. The Anglo-Saxons or Old English people were part of
the Gothonic or Germanic tribal peoples that inhabited Northern Europe.
They were closely related, culturally and linguistically, to the Scandinavians
and continental tribes of Europe in Germanic regions. These Gothonic tribes
are, linguistically and culturally, even if not always genetically, the
ancestors of modern English speaking cultures and people. Elsewhere in
Europe languages also developed, Old High German and Middle High German,
Low German and so on all developed into the modern languages used today.
Old Norse remained almost unchanged in Iceland, but elsewhere became the
modern languages of Norwegian, Danish, Swedish etc.
Over long periods of time, the language a people may employ in speech
or in writing changes very slowly, although this rate of change has become
more rapid with the development of mass communication such as television
and the internet. Usually, these changes take place so gradually that the
people speaking the language probably won't notice the changes. But
after hundreds of years, the changes become apparent - just as they have
with for example British English and American English; Icelandic and Norwegian.
Eventually a language can change so much that it can't really be called
the same language anymore. This factor can be very confusing if one reads
a translation of a myth, a rune poem, a saga and so on. Often a word in,
for example, Old Norse, can be translated directly into Modern English
using a common word. However, most of the time, the words used hundreds
of years ago and those used today have subtly changed their inferences
during the course of time - so what a Viking in Norway may have understood
by a word such as "snow" may be very different from what an academic from
a hot State in America may see in this term. This becomes a very important
factor when one reads any of the poetry written in Old Norse, Anglo-Saxon
and so on - and many of the myths and information about the runes are recorded
as poems - because here the poet (generally called a "Skald") often, even
in his own time, used very obscure language with double or triple meanings
and puns that are almost impossible to translate into modern English.
So language changes - We have to remember this when we study
Stav as very often it is easy to see a term and think one understands it
because one already knows the word (or something similar) in English. But
most of the terms in Stav refer to concepts that date back through the
mists of time and are very different to the way things are generally seen
in modern society. This should be born in mind as you read this book and
study Stav - it is important to look beyond the surface and seek for the
meanings hidden beneath and within.
The English language has been slowly changing for a very long time
indeed, just as Norse has altered also - for over a thousand years.
But not only the language has changed in this time, the way people "see"
things has changed too. If we could travel back in time to meet and talk
with people who lived in England about six hundred years ago, we might
have a lot of trouble understanding them. Today we call their kind of English
"Middle English". If we went back to talk to people who spoke English one
thousand years ago years ago, their English would be so much different
from ours that we could hardly understand them at all. Their language was
probably as close to modern German as it is to modern English - but always
we can find patterns and similarities that can be very revealing. We call
the language used 1000 years ago Old English or Anglo-Saxon (just as we
call the languages of Scandinavia at this time "Old Norse"). Before that
time, the language was so different that it really can't be called English
(in fact before the 5th Century CE, "England" and the rest of Britain was
inhabited by Britons who spoke Celtic languages, not Gothonic tongues).
Any language can change so much that it in time develops to a point where
it is effectively a new language, with a new name. But always a language
(or a culture or philosophy) is drawn from an earlier time, and an earlier
model of existence. Sometimes a language will evolve separately in
different times and places, and so despite a common origin it develops
into multiple new dialects, languages and forms. In many ways this is and
will be the case with Stav; on the one hand it is the tradition of a specific
Norwegian family, on the other it is a cultural heritage of Northern Europe,
and beyond. In time, as it has in the past, it will evolve and develop
new forms - all this is in accord with nature and to be welcomed, as long
as the guiding principles of the tradition are understood and remembered.
About two thousand years ago there was a language that is commonly
called "Germanic" (personally I think "Gothonic" might be a better term
but when referring to linguistic development I will keep to the widely
used term) . It was spoken somewhat differently in different places, and
in time it adapted and developed into a number of different languages,
including English (see earlier for a list). Just as English is descended
from Germanic, Germanic is descended from Proto-Germanic which in turn
stems from another language we call Indo-European. Indo-European was probably
spoken perhaps six thousand years ago. We can learn many different things
by looking at how a language changes - and perhaps by looking at how some
terms have changed we may see how there can be many ways of interpreting
the runes.
Often, if one compares dsifferent words in similar languages, just looking at
the differences in spelling is enough to see both the changes and the common origins.
However, sometimes it is also a good idea to know a little bit about how these
words are pronounced. If this doesn't interest you very much, don't worry about
it at this stage. Some parts of the Stav tradition - some of the chanting methods
we call Galder - involve certain combinations of vowels and consonants.
This will only become relevant should you study the Galder methods in the future,
and indeed the exact pronunciation is not considered to be very important (Norwegian
and English have both changed from their ancestor languages of the distant past
and who can say which is "right" or "wrong"?) but what is regarded as being vital
is the formation of some forms of vowels and consonant combinations as these alter
ones breath rhythm and thus both affect and effect ones total being (body, mind
and spirit). Looking at the development and alteration in some words may also
give further insights on how languages and world-views have changed, since spelling
does not always reflect pronunciation (just look at English words such as "Through"
{Thru}, "Tough" {Tuff}, "Bough" {Bow}, "Cough" {Coff} and so on!) - and a word
can mean many different things depending on who speaks or hears it.
This can be ordered by clicking on the Credit Card Orders Button
This is also part of the Runelore course provided by the Stav
Academy