I wrote this to serve as the culmination of a series of classes on runes which I taught for Willow Lodge. It's nice if you can have low rhythmic music in the background. Appropriate invocations should be made and the usual relaxation techniques observed before starting.
Look out over the dark grey sea toward the west, where your boat is moored. The sun is low over the water and far to the north. Turn away from the waves and stride across the wet pebbles and crunchy sand of the shore. When wet grass laps at your legs look up and see the purple sky of the east and the ragged horizon formed by the forest. A great black shadow rises up before you. Finnesburgh, the great hall of the north.
The entrance is covered by a flap of cowhide, a man like a troll pulls it aside and lets you in. The light is dim. A vast open hearth smokes orange and gold in the center of the space. Great hounds lounge about or gnaw at bones underfoot. You scan the room for a place to sit and choose a bench where there's still some room, and a place to lean your back against one of the mighty columns. The hall is huge and unlike most, round. The roof is a broad dome. Through the smoke hole you can see the sky, black yet filled with stars and the flickering green and blue shadows of the northern lights. Where the columns join the roof there are stange and beautiful carvings, of monsters and gods that seem to move as the light of the fire agitates them.
When your eyes become accustomed to the low light and your ears learn to sort the low voices from the sounds of wind and fire, you become aware that there is a seat of honor in this hall. And you see that amid the soft furs, behind the golden goblet, in the brightest glow of the fire, the skald is preparing to sing. Can it be that as the song forms in the singer's mind the vision it contains appears to you as well. Do you see, glowing, red as dark as blood, the figure of a rune, alive in each of the 24 great columns of the hall? One rune remains hidden from your sight. Observe the runes as you hear the words, and remember.
Fine cattle a moving fortune
Untamed ox tests young man's strength.
Thorns draw blood as giants wrestle
All Father's runes in Asgard sing.
Ride the road, perform the rites
Craft by torchlight in the hall.
Giving of gifts by a noble host -
Wonder, fellowhip and joy.
Hail harvests with freezing grains.
Need and Sorrow near the hearth.
Ice locks life in halls of darkness,
Yet ever comes the yearly harvest
Either way the yew tree grows.
Primal laws determine fate.
Zealous hands defend the bridge.
Sun wheel steers the vitki's will.
Tiw shows victory to dying heroes.
Birch trees hide the birthing lodge.
Horse alone is just a horse-
Mankind's memory knows the gods.
Lake gives life. When crossing drink.
Ing gives life to earth in spring.
Day at dawn and dusk shows sacred
Odin's holy place, this land.
On the column that supports your back is the rune that was hidden from you
alone. Turn around and find the rune meant for you. Hold it in your mind in
its living redness. You may know it by its name, you may know it by its shape.
You may know it by its word. You may know it by its number. The mystery of the
runes is revealed in many ways.
When you have your rune firmly in mind open your eyes. Mark the rune [on
your cracker] and eat it Make its sound and feel its power.