Raido
Easy Indoors
The r-rune, named for riding, and read in all three poems as the rider's ease set against the horse's labour.
The reconstructed name is raido, a ride or journey; the attested forms are Old English rad and Old Norse reið. Only the Icelandic poem gives both sides of it at once: joy of the horsemen, speedy journey, and toil of the steed. The Old English gives the rider's side alone — riding seems easy to every man while he is indoors, and harder to the one covering the mile-paths on a stout horse. The Norwegian gives the horse's, saying riding is worst for horses, and then adds, without evident connection, that Reginn forged the finest of swords. Read together rather than separately, a journey is one thing to the person carried and another to the animal carrying.
Light
Movement with a direction: travel, purpose, the ordering of a journey, and the plain competence of covering the distance rather than judging it from indoors.
Shadow
Cost borne elsewhere. The Icelandic poem sets the toil of the steed beside the rider's ease and the Norwegian says riding is worst of all for horses — motion mistaken for progress, and the strain a journey puts on whatever does the carrying.
