Norse & Germanic · Death & the Afterlife
Symbol · The Runes
Kaunan
Torch or Sore
The k-rune, whose name is disputed: an ulcer in both Norse poems, a torch in the Old English one.
What it meansThe English poem gives a torch burning pale and bright where princes sit. The Norwegian and Icelandic give an ulcer — a sore, the bane of children. The same rune is light in the hall and infection in the body, and the traditions never reconciled it.
Symbol · The Runes
Naudiz
Narrow on the Breast
In the English poem, hardship heeded in time becomes help: choices narrow until the necessary one is plain.
What it meansTrouble is oppressive to the heart, says the poem, and then reverses: yet it often becomes help and salvation to those who heed it in time. The Norwegian is bleaker — need leaves little choice, and the naked man freezes. Constraint as instruction, on the condition that it is noticed early.
Symbol · The Runes
Eihwaz
Guardian of Flame
The Elder Futhark rune of the yew tree, symbolizing endurance, resilience, and transformation between life and death.
What it meansThe yew: rough-barked, hard, fast in the earth by its roots — a guardian of flame and a joy on an estate. It is the tree of graveyards and of longbows, poisonous in every part, and among the longest-lived things in northern Europe. The poem praises it for holding.