Isaz
The Broad Bridge
A floor the frost lays: a bridge over water where there was none, and immeasurably slippery underfoot.
Reconstructed from Old English īs, Old Norse íss and Gothic eis; the Elder Futhark names none of its own letters. All three poems gloss this one, and the English is the fullest: ice is very cold and immeasurably slippery, glistening clear as glass and most like gems, a floor wrought by the frost, fair to look upon. The Norwegian gives one hard image, calling ice the broad bridge that the blind man must be led across. The Icelandic supplies three kennings: bark of rivers, roof of the wave, and the bane of doomed men. The single vertical stroke is the simplest shape in the row and the least disputed name in it.
Light
Ice is the one thing in the English poem admired for how it looks, a floor the frost has laid, clear as glass and set with gems. In the Norwegian it is a bridge, a way over water where there was none.
Shadow
That same floor is immeasurably slippery, and the Norwegian sets a blind man on it. The Icelandic makes ice the roof over the wave and the bane of the doomed: motion stopped, and then covered over.
