A Mantra

I have a new mantra I am using to help put myself in a spiritual place, mentally, and thought I would share.

Danu, Goddess of waters, please cleanse me,
Lugh of the long arm, please purify me,
Dagda, God of Good, please bless me.

Interestingly enough, after this came to me, I went back to figure out whether it made sense. In the Celtic mythos, Danu is the Mother Goddess and She is associated with water. In the broader, Indo European mythos, She is the basis of the name of the Danube, so the first part makes sense. But what about Lugh and the Dagda?

Then, in searching for information on that, I came across this rite by Ian Corrigan where he addresses Lugh as "purger of the unnatural," so I feel good about that reference as well.

Additional research led me to this article, outlining both the origin of the name God of Good and the fact that the Dagda bestowed blessings.

So I feel good about having some basis for this mantra, which also explains why it seems to work for me.

Blessings





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Hospice Serenity Prayer

God, give me grace to accept with serenity
That the coming end of my loved one’s life cannot be changed,
Courage to face this ending with dignity,
And the Wisdom to distinguish my grief from their relief.

Living one day at a time with them,
Enjoying each precious moment with them,
Accepting my hardship as a pathway to their peace,
Trusting that You will help me recognize that their final peace is a balm for my grief.

This is the most difficult thing You have ever asked of me,
But I know that You have done no less Yourself,
And so I ask, once more,
God, give me grace to accept with serenity
that the coming end of my loved one’s life cannot be changed,
Courage to face this ending with dignity,
and the Wisdom to distinguish my grief from their relief.

Odin's Tale

The Story Behind Acquiring Runes
by
Josef Finsel
If you enjoy this story, please donate to support future stories

1. Introduction

It had been a long journey, but in this particular case, the journey was far less important than the destination. A man walked along, a wide brimmed hat covering his face in shade, a well worn cloak wrapped about him. Frost rimed the rim of the hat and the man’s beard, but if the biting cold chilled him, he did not show it. Step by step he moved forward, focusing on the dark spot in the ground ahead where the wall of living wood that was his guide entered the earth.
Once he reached the hole, he carefully lowered himself down. Had he been one of the huge residents of this land it would have been little more than a step, but for him it was a bit of a drop to the ground below. He casually dusted himself off and kept moving forward, his goal so close now that he thought he could smell it ahead. Though it should have been dark, the huge tree root that he was following seemed to create its own glow, at least enough for him to see by. Even so, he moved more cautiously now, below ground, than he had when he strode amongst the giants above. He paused to listen, a smile slowly growing beneath the brim of his hat as he heard the gentle burbling of a spring fed well ahead. With more confidence now, he moved forward, his strides quickened by the belief his goal was close.
As he neared his objective, it seemed the very water was glowing, a living, guiding column of light rising toward the roof of the cave. The well was not yet named and, until now he had known it as nothing more than a rumored fount of wisdom. Yet here it was before him, cradled in the curled root he had followed down below the earth. One drink from this would give him wisdom, and each following drink would give him more. From here he could easily quench his thirst for knowledge.
The tree root, which had been tapering ever since they had come underground, was here about  the size of man’s thigh. When it reached the hole in the ground where the spring was, it started to curl about and down, spiraling to create the sides of the well, as nicely as any mason could have done. He knelt at the edge of the well and peered over the edge of the tree root, the sparkling water glowing several feet below. He took his cup from his backpack, the anticipation almost keening through him, and plunged his hand toward the water, only to jerk it back and stifle a scream. Blood seeped through his shirt and a long, shallow gash ran down his arm. Leaning over the edge of the root again he noticed dagger like thorns that seemed to sprout from the root once it started to spiral down to create the sides for the well.
“What’s a little pain compared to the wealth of wisdom to be gained,” he mused aloud. Steeling his resolve he reached his hand down again, ignoring the pain, only to find that the water was just out of reach. He withdrew his bloodied arm and set the cup next to him. Binding up his wounds he pondered what to do next, assessing the well as he did so.
The entrance wasn’t wide enough for him to be able to climb down, and the thorns would have made that impossible regardless. He pulled a length of rope from his pack and secured the cup. Standing over the well, he carefully lowered the cup. Once it hit water and filled, he started to pull it up but almost immediately the rope went slack. He pulled the short length of rope up and found it roughly cut at the end from one of the tree’s thorns. Sighing, he compared the length of rope to his arm and found that the water wasn’t far from the end of his arm, he had fallen just a bit short in his first attempt.
Taking another cup, he knelt again at the well’s edge and leaned forward. This time, he bent at the waist and lent the length of his torso to the attempt. It was a tight fit but he could see the water, tantalizingly close. And then he realized how close his face was to one of the dagger like thorns. He held himself very still and pulled back up, unwilling to risk permanent harm. He moved to another part of the well and repeated the process. Again and again he kept at it, but no matter which angle he tried, there was no way to reach the water without permanent injury.
Again he bound his wounds and considered his options. He had come seeking wisdom and yet that goal seemed to be thwarted. He pondered, weighing options and choices. He made several more attempts but the results were always the same. One alternative that never occurred to him was that he could turn around; giving up wasn’t an option. He considered the scratches on his arm, all long but shallow. He scratched his beard and rubbed his brow and mused “I suspect that, no matter how careful I am, I shall scratch my face in drinking from this well. Of course, that may not be a bad thing, a rakish scar could not but help me appear more dashing to the ladies and more fearsome to the gents. Wisdom plus a scar to show others my daring?” Nodding to himself, he picked up the cup and stood up, pacing around the well, looking at it from all angles. Suddenly he strode toward the well, knelt down and plunged his arm and torso into the well. He felt the cold water on his hand as he plunged the cup below the surface and gave a triumphant cry as he pulled the full cup from the well, a cry that turned to a howl of pain as something lanced through his head.
His eyes were still clenched tight from the pain as he raised the cup to his lips and gulped down the draught from the well. The cool water flowed down his throat and seemed to radiate out, cooling and easing the pain, filling his head with a rush of information. He opened his eyes but only saw the right hand side of the cave. He brought his left hand up to wipe away the blood that must have covered his left eye only to find far more blood there than he expected. Suddenly his new-found wisdom connected all the dots and he realized his left eye was no longer there, apparently cut by the thorns and must have dropped into the well.
He bandaged up his head and sat with his back resting against the wall of the cave and considered. The wisdom had cost him more than he had expected it to, but he felt it had been worth it. He realized that he now know things he hadn’t known before. He knew why whales migrated, he knew why salmon spawned, he knew the velocity of an unladen swallow. He spent time mining the treasure he had bought with his eye. It was wondrous, the power this wisdom contained. Total wisdom and knowledge was, he believed, worth the price he had paid. He let his mind roam the wealth of knowledge he had drunk in, letting question lead to answer lead to question down labyrinthine paths, until suddenly he was stopped short. He came across a question he didn’t have an answer to. It wasn’t an important question, it had to do with the proper amount of foam to add to something called an espresso but he realized he couldn’t actually answer the question of what an espresso was.
As he retraced some of the paths his thoughts had followed he found that some questions, when approached differently, lead to questions without answers. He was wiser, but with that knowledge he was coming quickly to the realization that a part of the knowledge he had gained was the number of things he didn’t know. He pondered long on this, and realized that, while he didn’t have answers, he did know where to find some of those answers. He pondered longer still, wondering whether the cost he had paid for the knowledge that there were still things he didn’t know was worth it. Finally he sighed, realizing that it didn’t matter, the cost had been paid and the wisdom was his, he could no more return it than he could get his eye back.
He slung his backpack over his shoulder, picked up his staff and started to walk back toward sunlight, with a mind full of new knowledge and the gap in his eyesight that came from the loss of an eye. There were answers he needed and there were only three people who knew those answers.

2. - Thirst

Thirst can be a powerful thing. It is said that thirst will drive you crazy long before hunger will kill you, but that’s the normal, easily quenched thirst. But Thirst, the kind spelled with a capital T, that Thirst is a whole different beast. Any alcoholic knows Thirst. While a glass of water may quench thirst, Thirst is unquenchable. Give an alcoholic’s Thirst a bottle of beer and it just deepens the Thirst, igniting it like pouring gasoline on a  lit fire. Adrenaline junkies know this Thirst, though it doesn’t come in liquid form for them. Instead they try to quench it by jumping from an airplane or running with bulls or diving from cliffs.
If we are honest with ourselves, we are all familiar with Thirst to some degree or another. Each one of us encounters things in our lives that ignite that Thirst within us and cause us to try to quench it. Sometimes we recognize the futility of the attempt and, like an alcoholic on the wagon, learn to put the Thirst out of our minds. But sometimes there is nothing for the Thirst but to try to quench it.
So it was that a man was walking along a barely discernible path toward what might be called a cave. Or maybe it was just a shallow depression in the cliff face. Though sometimes it appeared to be a canyon that stretched back for eternity. It was always in the same place but it seemed to change shape as he approached it, always a cave but in different stages of it’s life. The man nodded to himself and kept moving forward, almost like a moth drawn to a flame but he came of his own free will, seeking something that might quench his Thirst.
As he neared his destination, he heard sounds coming from the ever changing cave. Sometimes it sounded like a childish giggle, sometimes an old hag’s laugh, but always a constant underlying snipping sound as though a huge crab were constantly clicking its claws. Almost at the entrance, the voices changed, became clearer. “Someone’s come to visit,” he heard a girl’s voice drift from somewhere in the cave.
“No,” an older voice said, “someone’s come to bargain.”
“Wrong,” said a voice that resembled the sound of sand sliding down dunes in the desert, “someone’s come to learn.”
He stood at the cave entrance, wondering what the protocol was. He’d heard stories about what he was supposed to do, and all the stories contradicted one another. The only thing he was sure of was that if his Thirst could be quenched, this was the place to be able to do it. “Come in, come in,” the girlish voice called. The space in front of him resembled little more than a depression in the face of the cave but perhaps this was one of the tests. On little more than faith, driven on by his Thirst, he stepped forward and past the face of the cliff to find himself in an emptiness within the solid rock.
To call where he stood a cave would be to call the ocean a pond. Looking up, the roof was more sensed than seen, far above his head. There were little lights stretching out to an indefinable horizon to his left and right and in front of him. He wanted to turn around to see if the entrance was still there but knew it would be impolite to turn his back on the ladies he was here to visit. He removed his hat from his head, made a little bow and started, “Hello, my name..”
“We know your name,” said the girl’s voice.
“And we know your names,” said an older voice.
“And we know the titles and names you’ll have,” said the voice that reminded him of sand. “Which of them do you think we would want to hear?”
He was taken aback. The stories had never mentioned anything like this. “Uh, however you would like to address me,” he stumbled.
“We shall call you wanderer, for so you have come to us,” said the girl.
“And so you shall leave us,” said the the woman.
“And so  you shall live until you die, always needing to know what lies elsewhere,” said the oldest. “But you have come for a purpose,”
“You are correct, as you always are,” he replied as evenly as he could, though his heart was pounding.
“We do have an advantage in that,” said the woman, and the older woman laughed, a sound that reminded him of dried up sheaves rubbing together.
“Do you truly wish your heart’s desire?” said the youngest voice.
“Yes,” he said, nodding fervently.
The oldest one came toward him. small and frail and yet seeming to fill the cave. She looked him up and down, starting at his toes and working her way up to his eye, which he averted, unable to gaze into the abyss he saw. Much more quickly than he thought she would be able to, she reached for his walking staff and pulled it away. “Wanderers such as you don’t need a walking stick,” she said, pulling from somewhere about her a very sharp pair of scissors. Opening them as wide as they would go, she used them almost like a knife and whittled a point on the top of his staff and then handed it back to him. “Much more useful,” she said.
“For so many things,” said the young girl.
“Be careful, or you’ll hurt yourself with it,” said the woman, and all three laughed at some private joke.
“Are you sure you want what you seek?” asked the girl.
“I am sure,” he replied.
“Then follow me.” She grabbed his staff out of his hand and ushered him back toward the entrance of the cave, walking behind him and herding him out. He suddenly found himself outside the cave, on the trail, with the girl walking away with his staff, going along the cliff face. He raced to catch up, wondering how someone so small could move so fast. Suddenly the sky began to darken, though it was much too early for evening. Looking up, he saw a tree in front of him, performing the same optical antics as the cave, one step reaching up and blocking out the sun, the next a just budding sapling off in the distance. In attempting to figure out what was going on with the tree, he failed to realize that his guide had stopped and he was now between her and the tree. He kept moving closer to the tree, feeling pulled toward it’s constantly shifting shape, the understanding of why it acted that way almost within his grasp. He was almost to the tree/sapling/stump when he heard the girl cry out, “Wanderer!” He turned toward her in time to see her throwing his staff to him. No, not too him, at him.
The sharpened tip of his staff pierced his skin and pinned him to the tree, his head hitting the trunk even while he felt the staff thunking solidly into the mass of tree behind him. Though it should be impossible for a girl so small to have so much power, he was just as surprised to find himself no longer anywhere close to the ground. He could see it, somewhere below him, so far below that he couldn’t make out details. He craned his neck up and saw the canopy of the tree just as far above him. And he felt his helplessness at not being able to move, pinned like an insect to the tree, all to quench a Thirst. He wondered if it would be worth it. He wondered if he was going to die here. He wondered what he was doing. Then the world went black.

3. - The First Day

He awoke and found himself rolled up in his cloak in a small copse of trees. He blinked the sleep from his eye and looked around, thinking something wasn’t quite right. He stood up and stretched, yelping in surprise at the pain in his side. Suddenly, briefly, he felt as though he was in two places at once and that the pain in his side made perfect sense, that something was wrong with him but then the feeling passed and he rationalized that he must have taken a hit to his side and bruised it somehow.
He picked up his hat and placed it on his head, using his staff to pull himself upright and looked out from the copse of trees where he’d woken up. It seemed to be morning, and there appeared to be a house, so he started walking toward it. He walked for quite some time and the house never seemed to get nearer. He knew he was moving forward, the trees and shrubs that dotted the path marked his progress but the house almost seemed to be keeping away. He stopped and lifted the brim of his hat to peer at the house and was surprised to see someone stepping out the front door and starting down the path toward him.
His first thought was that it was a female giant but, in a strange play of perspective, she seemed to shrink rather than grow as she neared him. While his steps seemed to have moved him no nearer the house in the time since he’d started, she quickly covered the distance that separated them. He paused, leaning on his staff and appraised the newcomer. She was a bit shorter than he and appeared to be older, someone’s grandmother perhaps. He swept his hat from his head and bowed gallantly. A sharp pain in his left side almost made him gasp but he hid it well and stood straight, smiling, ignoring what must have been a pulled muscle. “Good morning,” he said, settling the hat back on his head.
She sized him up, her gaze travelling from his comfortable boots up over his deep blue cloak and finally to his hat. Her gaze seemed to pass through him and take him in all at the same time. “Depends, I suppose,” she finally replied. “Good for some things usually means bad for others. But a good day for a walk and some company. Are you headed anywhere in particular?” He shook his head. “Then perhaps you’d keep an old lady company while I go about my chores?”
Inclining  his head he said, “I’d be honored to aid you. My name is Vafud.”
She smiled as if she’d just heard a joke and said, “And you can call me Bestemor.” Turning, she headed back toward the house and he fell into step beside her, their strides devouring the distance to the house. “I’ve seen many folks walk this road, all of them on a quest of some sort. Are you sure helping me won’t delay your quest?”
Vafud chuckled. “If I am on a quest, who’s to say that helping you might not be a part of it?”
“True enough,” Bestemor agreed. “This path,” she pointed past the house, “goes on a bit and ends at the bottom of a cliff. If it be fortune you’re seeking, you’ll want to head to the right. Tis rumored that the end of that path lies a treasure of gold and precious objects beyond the wildest imagining of mortals.”
“Well,” said Vafud thoughtfully, “I’ve got quite an imagination but I also have wealth enough to satisfy me.”
Bestemor glanced at the well-worn though adequate travelling clothes and nodded. “If ye take the left hand turn and go to the end, you’ll find fame for things few would dare dream.”
Vafud rubbed his beard thoughtfully. “Fame is very much like a dream, as fleeting as the memory of last night’s visions and just as quickly forgotten.”
Bestemor stopped and looked at Vafud again, nodding slowly. “In that case, perhaps you’d best come with me.” She led him through a gate next to the house and back through rich pasture land, past cattle grazing quietly and to another gate. “Watch your step, the fence and gate here are to keep the cattle out of what I’m going to show you.” They stepped through the gate and Vafud found himself looking at a deep ravine. Bestemor settled on an old tree stump and indicated the ground next to her.“Tell me, Vafud, do you know the story of Yngvar the giant slayer?”
Vafud sat next to her, looking up as he answered, “No, I can’t say I do.”
“It’s not an important story, unless you happen to be Yngvar or one of the giants he slew, so I won’t bore you with the details. The short version of it is that Yngvar came home one day to find his sons and wife dead, ripped limb from limb by Herjolf, a giant who lived a short distance away.Yngvar took his sword and spear and headed off to avenge his family’s death. He came across Herjolf’s family and killed them, finishing just as Herjolf arrived home. Herjolf drew his spear and sent it hurtling toward Yngvar, who spun and threw his own spear. Both spears found their mark and the two died together. At least that’s one version of the story.”
“There’s another?”
“Oh yes. Yngvar’s family and Herjolf’s had lived in peace for several generations, each helping the other out when needs arose. When Yngvar reached adulthood, though, he wasn’t interested in hard work. He thought Herjolf had more than enough to live off of so Yngvar and his family lived by stealing from the giant. Many times the giant had come to Yngvar to try to reconcile this behavior, and many times had he left believing the matter resolved. Finally he told Yngvar that anyone caught stealing from his lands would be killed. And, oddly enough, the next person who was caught stealing was a fellow giant and Herjolf killed him, just as he said.
“Two days later, however, while out tending his cattle, Herjolf saw Yngvar’s wife and sons attempting to make off with one of his cows. He gave chase, finally cornering them in their house where he carried out the same judgement he had done to his fellow giant. Very sad, he went off to pray to his gods only to come home to see the tragic end of his family being slaughtered. And you know how that ends.”
Vafud nodded, “With spear pierced hearts. Which of those stories is true?”
Bestemor sat silently for a long time, watching as the sun’s rays slowly crept down the side of the ravine across from them. “What makes you think they aren’t both true?” She turned to look at Vafud who was looking into the distance, considering his reply.
“I suppose,” he said finally, “that there could be truth to both stories and prejudices in both stories as well.”
“Then perhaps I know what your quest is and I can help you.” Bestemor rose from the stump and walked over to the edge of the ravine. “Look down there,” she said. “What do you see?”
Vafud stepped next to her and looked down. “I see a river.”
“Yes, but that’s just stating the obvious. The real question is, why is there a ravine here? But, now it’s time for lunch. Come with me.” And with that, the two headed back to the house, Vafud’s curious thoughts chasing one another.

3.1. Interval

On a tree hung a man, his side pierced by a spear. The spear was lodged deeply in the tree and his blood trickled down the space between his back and the bark of the tree. A caw broke the still air and a raven settled on a branch near where the man hung. It tilted it’s head one way and then the other, taking in the man. Then it settled in to wait.
Back at the house, Vafud sat at the table while Bestemor bustled around the kitchen, putting some meat, bread and cheese in front of her guest and indicating a jug of wine for the both of them. After their meal, Bestemor had Vafud grab an empty barrel and bring it out back. There she made him fill it and haul it over to the ravine, where she sat back down on the stump. Vafud set the barrel of water next to her and waited, patiently.
“That ravine,” she pointed, “isn’t a ravine, it’s a scar.” She casually reached out and removed the bung from the barrel of water, watching as the water spilled forth over the scraggly grass and rock and then disappeared over the lip of the ravine. Dipping her fingers into the water as it poured forth she said, “This water, it’s like the stories men and giants and every other sentient being tells one another. It’s entertaining, it’s refreshing, but it also disappears.” As the water slowed to a trickle and then stopped, she stood and ran her fingers over the still damp rocks.
“In its passage we can find traces but they disappear all too soon. So it is with stories told. Not only that, but stories told by one can be misheard by another and the retelling from one ear to another can cause the story to be as vastly different as mead and wine. But that,” and she pointed again to the ravine, “that scar tells a tale to all who know how to understand it. The flow of the river cuts through the land, a steady, wearing down that can tell people who know such things that there was a river here, even if it stopped flowing.
“There is a way, Vafud, to do the same with stories. To etch them so that they are recorded beyond the life of the story teller.”
Vafud considered her words, watching as the stone dried under the sun. “Would that have changed the story of Yngvar and Herjolf?”
Bestemor laughed, “Probably not, giants and humans are too prejudiced to let truth get in the way of their stories. But it might keep future stories from being passed down incorrectly.” She stood up and stretched, “Come along, Vafud, help me see to the cows.”

3.2. Interval

As the raven sat on the branch watching the figure, a caw rent the air. Turning its head, the raven watched as a black dot resolved itself into another raven that settled down on another branch, opposite the first. The two ravens bobbed heads in silent agreement and then sat patiently.
As Bestemor and Vafud walked from the ravine toward the cattle, she asked, “Tell me, Vafud, what’s the difference between a wild and a domestic cow?”
Vafud rubbed his beard thoughtfully. “The fact that domestic cows are fenced in?”
Bestemor laughed, a clean, infectious sound. “Ah, Vafud, you have much to learn about cattle.”
“I have much to learn about many things,” conceded Vafud. “Tis only an ignorant fool who believes he has learned enough.”
“Well, let’s see if we can educate you some today.” Bestemor walked up to one of the cows complacently chewing cud and threw a rope around the docile beast’s neck, tossing the other end of the rope to Vafud. “Let me know when you are ready,” she called to him.
Vafud took the rope in both hands and called back, a little perplexed, “Ready for what?” Bestemor just shook her head and took something from around the cow’s neck and stood back. Vafud watched as the cow transformed before his eyes, becoming slightly larger. If he didn’t know better he would swear that the bulk of the cow had transformed into muscle and the horns that adorned the cow’s head seemed to lengthen and sharpen, suddenly gleaming in the sunlight.
Then, as if suddenly discovering that someone had attempted to violate it’s liberty with a rope, the cow lowered it’s head and suddenly reared up, almost jerking the rope from the startled hands of Vafud. The sudden yank pulled Vafud’s body and the sudden spasm of pain from his side almost made him let go but he was determined not to be bested. He held on tight and pulled against the might of the animal he faced. Vafud realized that something had changed; whatever Bestemor had removed from around the cow’s neck had allowed it to transform from domesticated cow to a rampaging, wild auroch.
The rope suddenly went slack as the auroch rushed Vafud, horns lowered. At the last moment, Vafud jumped clear, still holding the rope, yanking short the wild animal’s charge. This went on for another 20 minutes, with the ache in Vafud’s side fighting him almost as much as the mighty beast, until suddenly the beast was a cow again and Bestemor was standing next to it, speaking soothingly to it. She motioned for Vafud to come closer.
Chuckling, she took the rope from his hands and said, “He was inside the fences the whole time but I don’t think you’d call him a domesticated cow, would you?”
Vafud shook his head, “No, that I wouldn’t. So, what is the difference between a wild and domestic cow?”
Vafud pointed to the collar around the now docile cow’s neck. “This,” she said.
“A collar?”
“Not exactly the collar, look closer.”
Vafud leaned in closer and saw that there was a pattern woven into the collar, a repeating motif of a straight line with two lines angled off of it. “What’s this figure?”
Bestemor smiled, “That, Vafud, is a symbol that means domestic cow.” Removing the rope from around the cow’s neck she continued. “Symbols are powerful things. They can teach, remind, reinforce. For some, like this animal here, they can transform.” Bending down she scratched two symbols in the dirt with a stick.

”This first symbol is one that stands for the mighty auroch. Almost all of the cattle I have started life as those wild beasts. The second is for domestic cattle. With beasts like these, the symbol itself can transform one from the other. That cow,” she said, pointing to the beast Vafud recently fought, “is an auroch. Right now, wearing that collar, he is domesticated. When I took the collar off, however, he reverted back to his natural form.”
Vafud rubbed his beard thoughtfully. “Collars can be slipped or fray through, seems to be a potential problem.”
Bestemor nodded. “There’s more permanent solutions than that collar.” With that she led him over to another of the cows that stood nearby and pointed to the cow’s flank. “We brand them with the symbol of domestic cattle and then they can’t forget.”
“Does it work that way with everything?” Vafud wondered aloud.
Bestemor chuckled. “Of course not.” She took a collar adorned with the sign for cattle from the branded cows neck and placed it around her own. “I know who and what I am, that makes all the difference in the world. These poor animals don’t. They exist without thought and thus are subject to being easily changed. Come along, the rest of the herd needs seeing to.”

3.3. Interval

The two ravens sat imperturbably while the body writhed in front of them, almost as though it were fighting against an invisible foe, but the spear kept it pinned there. The body stilled again and the blood continued to slowly flow into the bark of the tree.

4. - The First Night

That night, after a day of taking care of the cattle, Vafud and Bestemor sat around the fire while Bestemor explained, “Words have power, but that power only lasts for as long as the word is heard. Some words disappear almost as soon as they are heard, like Hello. Others might echo in a listener’s head for awhile or even a lifetime, depending on the impact that the words have on the listener. Runes are more like physical words and have the power to change the very nature of an item. Take a tree limb. With a little work and care it can be made into a staff, a cudgel, a spear.”
As she spoke the flickering shadows cast by the fire seemed almost to change Vafud’s staff in the corner in some strange way, as the original tree limb, then into a staff and then into a spear before it became just a staff again. “Runes can also be used to communicate, if you know how. One way is to ask the Norns for advice, though that can be a risky business. However, I did ask them what I should do with you. This was their response.”
Bestemor laid a wooden disk on the table, it had two diagonal lines intersecting it.

“This is gebo, it means gift. Which I took to mean that I should gift you with the knowledge of runes. But now, it’s time to rest. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow. You can sleep over there,” she said, pointing to a small room. “Good night.” Bestemor headed up the stairs and left Vafud to his thoughts. He watched the flames dance and listened to the fire crackle and pop until he, too, went to bed.
Almost instantly he was dreaming and his dream was pain. There was an intense, throbbing pain that was his body. It seemed to be radiating out from somewhere in his midsection somewhere but he couldn’t say for sure where. He felt his slow heart beat throb through his entire body, almost as though it were the ringing of a bell. “This is a dream. All I have to do is open my eyes and I’ll wake up.”
He opened his eyes and found there was a shaft protruding from his chest, with two ravens sitting on it, both looking at him with their heads cocked. He lifted his head to look up but he found his head hitting something rough and he couldn’t look but he could look out and he saw a patchwork of stars covering the sky. He looked down and saw the land, far below him. And then he fought against the pain to move his arms and grab the spear. Both ravens slowly shook their heads at him, almost as though they were telling him not to do that. For some reason, they made him think better of it. He lowered his arms and a wave of pain rolled through him, causing him to lose consciousness.

5. - The Second Day

Vafud rose from sleep to the smell of food cooking. He rolled over to see Bestemor in the kitchen cooking breakfast and felt a brief sharp pang in his side that disappeared quickly. “Good to see you up, Vafud. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover today. Did you sleep well?”
“I’m not sure, I had some strange dreams, though I don’t remember what they were.”
“Well, let’s get some breakfast in you and I’ll teach you something new that will help us on our journey.”
He settled down to the simple breakfast that Bestemor had made and, while he ate she started teaching again. She lay another small disk on the table, this one with two vertical lines and then two diagonal lines from the top of the vertical lines heading in until the two met.

“This is Ehwaz, it means horse. And today I’ll teach you a new way to use a rune. Yesterday I showed you how to use a physical rune to create physical changes. Today I’ll teach you how to use one in your mind.” She got up, cleaning the kitchen and instructing Vafud to go get cleaned up. A little bit later they were out in the brisk morning air.
“There are many ways to use runes,” she said. “The easiest is to apply a rune physically to something that can be changed, as we did yesterday. But you can also apply runes to yourself. However, you may not want to do that physically, since there can be problems with that. We’ll discuss that more later today, when we meet up with an object lesson in abusing the runes. But for now, I want you to sit on that stump and watch me.”
Vafud sat and Bestemor started walking down the road. She was walking at a normal pace and then she was suddenly much further down the road, where she stopped and turned around. She walked back at a normal pace, which gave Vafud about 10 minutes to sit and wonder. When she came back she sat on a stump close to him.
“Ehwaz means horse but it also means travel. And the trick to the walk I just took was that I applied Ehwaz to my feet. Now, you wouldn’t want to have that rune applied to your feet all the time because you couldn’t take small step across the room. So, what you do is see the rune on your feet in your mind. Go ahead, try it.”
Vafud cocked his head. "I thought you said yesterday that runes couldn't change you like they did the aurochs?"
Bestemor chuckled, "I said I knew who I was and that I couldn't be changed against my will like the aurochs. In this case, I am choosing to change, and applying the change willingly. See the difference?"
Vafud nodded and stood up, trying to visualize the rune on his feet. “When you see it,” Bestemor said, “take a step” Vafud took a step and moved about 18 inches. Bestemor laughed, “Not as easy as it sounds, is it?” Vafud stood there a bit longer, looking down at his feet and then tried again, taking another normal step. “Sit back down,” Bestemor told him. He sat on the stump again. “Take off your boots,” she told him.
“Now, stand up again. Look at your feet. Close your eyes and keep the image of your feet in your mind’s eye. Can you see it?” Vafud nodded. “Okay, now imagine dipping your finger in some mud and draw Ehwaz on your foot. Can you see it there now?” Vafud nodded again. “Now, take a step.” Vafud stepped forward, another normal step. Bestemor sighed and got up and came over to him. “Let’s start with a physical rune.”
She knelt down and spilled some water out on the ground and painted Ehwaz on Vafud’s feet. “We can easily wash that off.” She stepped back. “Take one step.” Vafud took a step and moved just 18 inches. Vafud walked up to him and tapped her finger on his forehead. “That’s one thick skull you’ve got there. Okay, we’ll try this the hard way.” She stepped in front of him and turned her back to him. “Ok, I’m going to give you a piggy back ride.”
Vafud stared at her. “I’m sorry, what?”
Bestemor turned and looked up at him. “I said that I’m giving you a piggy back ride. That way you can experience what it’s like to take a step like this. It might help you.”
“But,” Vafud started, looking down at her. Her glare cut off whatever he was about to say. She turned around again and reached up and pulled Vafud over her back. Bending over, she reached behind her and hooked her elbows behind his knees and hefted him onto her back. Surprisingly, she seemed to be strong enough to handle Vafud without any difficulty.
“Be ready,” she said and then she took a step. Vafud felt slightly disoriented as the world around him shifted and Vafud found himself on Bestemor’s back but further down the path. Then she took several more steps, each one shifting the world around them. Bestemor set him down and straightened up, turning to face him. “I’m going back. I’ll wait for you there. The quicker you figure this out, the quicker we’ll be off. But it’s about a 2 hour walk if you don’t.” With that she turned and disappeared.
Vafud looked down at his feet and then back up at the path. He could see the runes painted in mud on his feet and he took a step. Nothing. He thought about what he’d seen yesterday with the changes between the aurach and the ox. There was a power he had felt then. He calmed his mind, focusing on the feeling of that power and then he tried applying it to the mud on his feet. He could feel the power pushing against his body but it still felt distant.
He decided to embrace the power and suddenly his feet felt different, as though the power was flowing in them. He took a step and felt the shift and, when his step was over, he was not where he had started. He smiled and took another step and found himself closer. After 5 more steps he could see Bestemor’s house. One more step and he was just a few feet away from where she sat on the stump.
“I get it,” he said and took a step toward her and suddenly found himself on the other side of her house. He could hear her laughter rising up behind him and heard her calling on him to sit down and wait for her to come over. He sat down and waited patiently. A moment or two later, and Bestemor’s figure strode over to him.
“Well, that’s progress Vafud. Here, let me wash those off your feet.” She poured some water over the muddy rune shape and it immediately lost it’s shape. “There, we should be safe to walk back without mishap.” He got up and followed her back to the house. “That’s two lessons in one, first on how to use Ehwaz and second why applying runes can have unintended consequences.”
Once they were back on their stumps, Bestemor said, “So, what was different this time?” Vafud explained about the power and channeling that power into the rune and how that was effective. Bestemor nodded. “That sounds right. But you can’t really explain that to someone who doesn’t have the talent to do this. So it looks like teaching you about runes won’t be a complete waste of my time. Stand up and try it again, this time using just the visualization. If it works, you can visualize the runes as not there to turn it off.”
Vafud nodded and stood up, looking down at his bare feet and visualizing Ehwaz there. Then he tapped that power he had felt before and poured it into the rune. Then he took a step and felt the shift. Then he visualized the rune as gone and took a normal step. Then he visualized it again and shifted back to where Bestemor was waiting.
“Good. Now, you practice turning those runes on and off and walking with and without them while I gather some things up. Put your boots back on as we’ll be taking a trip so I can teach you some more important things.” She headed into the house while Vafud spent some time experimenting with using Ehwaz to travel.

5.1. Interval

The ravens kept their vigil, sitting on the spear that pierced that man hanging from the tree, silently watching and waiting. Occasionally they would turn from the man toward each other, as though communicating silently. A chittering noise came from above them and both turned their eyes toward the source. Soon a squirrel came in view, racing down the tree head first. It spotted the man and the spear and the ravens and changed course to investigate. The squirrel didn’t come too close but it came close enough to get a good look and paused, taking in the whole situation. Then it let out a long string of chittering before continuing to scamper down the tree.
Bestemor came out of the house with her pack on and yelled for Vafud to go get his pack. Once he had his gear on, his hat comfortably slouched on his head and his walking staff, Bestemor took out a piece of rope and tied it around her waist. “Here,” she said, handing the other end to him. “Tie this around your waist. That way we’ll move at the same rate. Otherwise, your long legs would take you far ahead of my pace, even with Ehwaz.” Vafud tied the rope around him and soon they were off, travelling a fair pace in a short time.
When they came to a stop, they were atop a ridge, looking over a valley of devastation. The plants that grew there were stunted and twisted, the ground was torn up and the overall impression was of somewhere unhealthy. Bestemor took her pack off and rummaged around in it for a minute, finally coming up with a new disk. This one had two diagonal lines on it, branching out from a center point. “This is Kenaz. It means vision, like how a torch makes it possible to see in the darkness.”

She pointed out over the valley below. “If you apply the Kenaz to your eyes you will be able to see further and more clearly. Try that and look over toward that hole on the other side of the ridge.”
Vafud tried to do as Bestemor directed. It took him a couple of tries but, after his experience with Ehwaz, this was much easier to do. Once applied to his eyes he found that varying the amount of power to Kenaz changed how far he could see. With that done, he focused on the hole she had pointed out and found a cave. Just inside the cave he could see movement. It took some work adjusting Kenaz but eventually he was able to focus on what was inside the cave.
It was monstrous. It appeared to be something about 9 feet tall, with unkempt shaggy fur and a body that resembled a man put together by someone who had only heard about what a man looks like third or fourth hand. “What is that creature?” Vafud asked.
“That used to be a man,” Bestemor responded calmly. “He was another who came looking for the gift of runes.”
Vafud paled and turned toward her, startling as he forgot to turn Kenaz off and her visage filled his eyes. Turning of Kenaz he asked, “Am I going to end up like that?”
She shook her head ruefully,”I don’t think so. Sit and I’ll tell you his story.”
“His name was Anak, and he came to me just as you have, seeking knowledge. I shared with him, as I have you, the knowledge of the runes. And, as I have with you, I explained the dangers of applying runes to ourselves. And, as I will teach you, there are ways to use the runes to change ourselves. Just as you have used Kenaz to see further or Elwaz to travel faster. But Anak was hungry for power. And he was always pushing boundaries.
“It is possible, using the runes, to make physical changes to yourself. To make yourself a giant or an elk or any of a number of other living things. After one such experience as a giant, Anak found that he liked the feeling of power and strength that being a giant gave him so he carved that rune, along with several others, into his body. He slipped away one night and did that. I didn’t discover what was wrong until the next day when I found he was missing. I searched for two days before I found him, and by then it was too late.” Bestemor shook her head sadly.
Vafud looked confused. “Runes did that to him?”
“No, Vafud. Anak did that to himself. He placed runes on himself to modify his body and made them permanent. Once they were powered on, he had no way to turn them off, though he couldn’t conceive of why anyone would want to. As those runes continued to interact with him and with each other, they warped and changed him, physically and mentally. Here, let me give you a demonstration.”
With that, Bestemor got up and, suddenly, an elk stood where she had been, looking at him expectantly. “Bestemor?” Vafud asked, and the elk nodded and then, just as suddenly, the elk was Bestemor. Vafud sat down slowly, shaking his head. “What was that?”
Bestemor laughed. “That was using a rune to change shape. It’s not an easy skill to master but it’s a quite useful one. The hardest part of changing shape is keeping your humanity while in the beast’s body. I’ll teach you this skill, as well as how to learn the runic shapes for other animals, but it takes some work. And, if you physically apply the rune in a permanent fashion, it can force the animal body to take over. That’s a part of Anak’s problem. The other part is that he used so many different runes they conflicted and he is what he is today, nothing natural and nothing really good. And that valley is where he lives. Everything in it is because of him.”
“Can’t he leave it?” Vafud asked.
Bestemor shook her head. “No. I’ve got a set of runes posted around his valley to both keep him in and others out. He serves as an object lesson for all who use runes, though I wish he didn’t. While he made those choices, I still feel responsible.” She sighed. “Come along, we’ve got a ways to go before nightfall. Turn Ehwaz on again and let’s get going.”
They secured the rope around their waists again and took off.

5.2. Interval

The ravens sat on the spear, the sun having traversed three fourths of its arc in the sky. Soon they heard the chittering again and looked down to see the squirrel coming back toward them, this time carrying something in its mouth. Soon it was close enough for the ravens to see that it carried a leaf, very carefully. Once the squirrel was close enough, it slowly approached the man from the left, close to where the man’s head hung down. The ravens cocked their heads curiously as the squirrel tilted the leaf carefully so that the water the squirrel had carried tipped into the man’s mouth, where he reflexively swallowed. The squirrel tilted his head toward the ravens and tore off up the tree.
Bestemor finally stopped in a clearing and nodded. “Let’s set up camp and then it’ll be time for your next lesson.”  The two set to work and, in a very short time, had a fire going and water boiling for tea. Bestemor pulled out another wooden disk, this one with a vertical line that had a diagonal line branching off each side toward the top.

“This is Algiz. Like most runes, it has multiple meanings, but for tonight we’ll focus on the most basic meaning, protection, shelter. This is actually the rune I used around Anak’s valley It is both for his protection from us and vice versa. Now, how do you think you would use Algiz to protect our campsite tonight?”
Vafud thought for a bit and then said, “I guess I could imagine it encircling our camp.”
Bestemor nodded. “Good idea, see if that works.”
Vafud closed his eyes and imagined Algiz symbols surrounding the camp. That was easy enough. Then he attempted to start powering them but he was only able to power a couple of runes before the first ones lost power. Then he had an idea and set the runes up so that the left line of one touched the right line of the next so he had a set of rune that were all connected. He felt for the energy and attempted to power the runes.
The next thing he knew, his face was wet and Bestemor was slapping it. He realized he was laying back on the ground and opened his eyes, watching as Bestemor slowly came into focus. He shook his head to try to remove some of the cobwebs that seemed to have been spun in his brain and let her help him up.
“What in all the nine realms did you try to do, boy?” Bestemor asked him. As he explained she shook her head and chuckled. “An interesting concept, Vafud, but not one that would work.” She got him sitting upright and gave him something to drink.
“I didn’t think I’d need to cover this quite so soon but I can tell you’re going to be a challenge to me so we may as well get all of this covered now. When you power up runes, you’re actually channeling the power through yourself. If it’s a permanent rune, like those on the collars around the oxen, then the power is connected directly to the rune and you are no longer needed. Visualized runes, on the other hand, require us to be the channel the power flows through. If you try to channel too much power, you’ll knock yourself out. Conversely, if you get knocked out while powering a visualized rune, the rune will stop working.”
“Is that why I feel wrung out?” Vafud asked, sipping his drink.
“That’s one side effect. Don’t worry, you’ll be right as rain in the morning. I think we’re done for the night, since you look utterly exhausted.”
Vafud nodded and settled into his bedroll, out almost immediately.

6. - The Second Night

The pain hit almost immediately. His eyes opened to take in a star lit sky and the shaft of a spear sticking from him, with two jet black ravens sitting on it. He thought he heard a sound to his left and turned to see a giant squirrel with a leaf in its mouth. The squirrel came close and he could see that the leaf was filled with water. A sudden thirst raged through his body and, when the squirrel tipped the leaf so the water filled his mouth, he drank greedily. It did seem to quench his thirst more than he expected but it also had a soporific effect and he felt himself his eyes closing and slipped back into unconsciousness again.
Soon he was dreaming again, but this time his dream was filled with horrors. He was back at the campsite and trying to connect all of the Algiz runes that he had connected in a circle. This time, instead of Bestemor standing over him trying to wake him up it was a disjointed pain that throbbed through his body. He opened his eyes to see his body was twisted and contorted and covered in matted fur. His hearing kept wavering between hyper acute and deaf and his eyes couldn’t focus on anything. He could feel the runes covering his body and fighting one another, a depth of pain and confusion that he couldn’t understand.
Bestemor looked over from her seat next to the fire, watching Vafud toss and turn and moan as a nightmare consumed him. Finally, she walked over to him and placed her hand on his forehead and concentrated. His nightmare faded and his body relaxed. She shook her head and headed to her own bed.

7. The Third Day

The next day Vafud woke up to strange aches in his side, but rolled out of the bedroll and stretching his body, wincing at the pain in his side. He smelled breakfast cooking and walked over to where Bestemor was bustling around the fire. “Did you sleep well,” she asked him.
“I suppose, though I think I picked a spot to sleep on that didn’t agree with me. I’m sorer than normal.”
She handed him a mug of something and said, “I’m sure you’ll feel better after we get moving again. Eat, then I’ll teach you something new.” She pointed to the food cooking and then headed off into the woods. He ate and then cleaned up the dishes and was just putting everything back into the pack when he heard a rustling behind him. Turning he saw Bestemor standing next to an Elk, her hand resting on its shoulders.
She smiled. “Good, you didn’t frighten it. Yesterday I showed you that you can use the runes to change shape, today I’m going to teach you how. Beginning with learning how to see the internal shape for an animal. You’re going to use Kenaz again, but instead of looking over a distance you want to look close up. Start by just looking at the elk, where you are.”
Vafud nodded and looked at the elk.
“Now, add power to Kenaz but don’t do anything, don’t change what you’re looking at.” She waited for Vafud to indicate he was doing so. “Now, focus on one part of the elk, something distinct that you’re already looking at.”
“Like the ear?” Vafud asked.
“That would do fine. Without moving, attempt to look closer at it, allowing Kenaz to do the work for you. You should be able to make out individual hairs. Can you see that?”
“It’s amazing,” Vafud said.
“It’s only begun,” Bestemor replied. “Now, choose one hair and focus on just that, can you see that?” Once Vafud nodded she continued. “Now, look even closer, always focusing on one piece of what you see. When you get to what you need, you’ll know it.”
She waited patiently, gently rubbing the elk’s shoulders until suddenly Vafud exclaimed, “Runes!” The startled elk bolted away and Bestemor laughed as Vafud stumbled.
“Turn off Kenaz, Vafud. Let your eyesight return to normal.”
Vafud sat down on a convenient rock and rubbed his eye. “That was interesting. But I thought I saw runes.”
“You did,” Bestemor replied, coming over to sit near the fire. “That was the elks dyr-utforming, what makes an elk look like an elk and not a rabbit. Once you’re familiar enough with a general dyr-utforming, you’ll learn to spot variations that affect the color of the coat or the color of the eyes.”
Vafud tilted his head and looked at her. “All of the runes I’ve seen have been straight lines, but the dyr-utforming is filled with intricate twists and turns. How can that be?”
Bestemor chuckled. “You didn’t have time to see the individual pieces before you scared away the poor elk.” She grabbed a stick and started to draw runes on the ground. “Take Algiz, which is a simple, straight up and down rune of 3 lines. Draw one as your starting point. Now, draw a second one with the right line connected to the left line of the first but tilt it slightly. Keep doing that and, while you do, make each Algiz slightly smaller.” She continued to draw and soon she had a spiral of Algiz runes.

“Or,” she said, calmly erasing the spiral with her foot, “you can do the same thing with differing runes.” She drew a series of straight lines, all interconnected, until a complex pattern was on the ground in front of them, filled with loops and whorls. She admired her handiwork for a minute and then rubbed it out. “But, for now, it’s time to get moving again. Let’s finish breaking camp and head out.

7.1. Interlude

The ravens watched from their vantage point on the spear. Every now and then another bird would approach the still form pinned to the tree and one of the ravens would fend it off. The squirrel came by and kept the form hydrated. The sun beat down from a cloudless sky.
As they moved, using Ehwaz to speed their trip, Bestemor continued to explain using the runes to shapeshift. “When you use dyr-utforming, it’s similar to putting on clothes. You remain who you are, but the world sees you differently. But, dyr-utforming affects you as well. Elk, for example, see a different set of colors than we do, dogs can see better at night but in a greyer world than we are used to. The enhanced sense of smell and hearing can take some getting used to as well. But there are,” she paused, “other effects as well.””
“Like Anak?” Vafud guessed.
“Similar. While you’re still you, the instincts of the animal will still be there, a part of the form you’re wearing. So an elk might see something out of the corner of the eye and bolt, because that’s their preservation instinct keeping them from becoming prey to wolves. You can overcome those instincts, but it takes time. However, the longer you wear a form, the  more impact it can have on who you are. The best way to learn a new form is in small doses. Once you’ve become experienced at dyr-utforming, it’s easier to learn new forms more quickly too. When we set camp for tonight I’ll find another elk and help you become one.”
That night, while they were making camp, Bestemor suddenly spun and walked over to a thicket where she reached down and pulled up a rabbit, nestling it in her arms she turned to Vafud and said, “I think this will be even better than an elk. Once you get the fire going, we’ll try this again.”
With a healthy fire going, Vafud set down next to Bestemor, who was cradling a peacefully sleeping bunny in her lap. Bestemor began, “Ok, just like you did with the elk, focus on one part of the rabbit and keep focusing in closer. When you see the dyr-utform of the rabbit, try to envision that form being on your body and then power it up.”
Vafud looked at the rabbit, where one of it’s ears caught his eye. He focused on the ear until individual hairs began to stand out, then focusing on an individual hair, then the parts that made up the hair and finally an image resolved  that was a complex pattern of runes. He attempted to focus in closer on a portion of that and the pattern that came into view was the same as the larger pattern he had started with. At that point, he attempted to take the pattern and see it on himself. It took him a few minutes before he was satisfied. Once he was, he powered up the image.
The world shifted around him. He saw Bestemor looming huge in front of him. Then he drew in a breath and the assault on his sense began. The huge influx of scents and sounds that hadn’t been there before overwhelmed him and the world shifted again.
Bestemor chuckled and Vafud realized he was crouched atop the stone he had been sitting on just moments before. He stepped down and settled himself back on the stone. “What happened to me?” he asked.
“You changed into a rabbit. My guess is that the scents and sounds overwhelmed you and returned you to your normal shape.”
He nodded. “First I saw you from the viewpoint of a rabbit and then the scents and sounds seemed to just take over and I couldn’t filter them.”
“It’s a learning process. Once you’ve practiced dyr-utforming enough, it will be second nature to filter out the animal’s extra sensitive senses. Now, let’s try again.”
Vafud focused on the rabbit again and soon felt that shift and found himself looking up at Bestemor again.”Good. Just give yourself a minute and focus on being a rabbit.” While she spoke, he sat up on his hind feet, his front paws rubbing together. Then he purposely sniffed, feeling his nose twitch. He smelled the smoke from the fire, the green of the grass around them, the other rabbit mingled with Bestemor.
“Now,” he heard Bestemor say, and felt his ears swivel toward the source of the sound. “Let go of the dyr-utform of the rabbit and be yourself.” He did and found himself sitting on the rock again. “Much better. Again,” she ordered.
They spent much of the next hour or so with him changing back and forth. After the dozenth time, she made him do it without looking at the rabbit, conjuring the dyr-utform from memory. Then, while he was sitting there in rabbit form she made a sudden move in his direction. Without thought, he felt his rabbit body jump away reflexively, startling him back to his normal form. When he turned around, Bestemor was laughing and motioning him to sit back down on the rock.
“Sorry, Vafud, I couldn’t resist and you needed to learn an important lesson. While you can filter out the senses to a manageable level, you cannot remove the inherent reflexes of whatever you are being. Rabbits are designed to keep themselves alive and one way they do that is a well-honed startle reflex. If something startles them, they assume it’s a predator and do their best to go in the direction away from whatever startled them. You should know, as best you can, those innate reflexes of whatever animal whose dyr-utform you want to use so they don’t take you by surprise.”
Vafud nodded. “That makes sense.”
“Indeed,” Bestemor said. “Tell me, do you know the story of Gunnlaug and Hildungr Sigvaldason?” When Vafud shook his head, she settled into story telling mode.
Gunnlaug and Hildungr Sigvaldason were brothers, twins, and inseparable from birth. If you hadn’t know they were twins, however, you wouldn’t believe it. Gunnlaug was a willowy man, lithe and lean, an excellent woodsman and a hunter that was rumored to hit whatever he loosed his spear at. His brother Hildungr was a bear of a man, brawny and hirsute, with smiling face and a great laugh. Hildungr was as accomplished at dyr-utform as his brother was at hunting.
They frequently went hunting together, Gunnlaug with his spear and Hildungr in bear form. On one of these hunting trips, they got separated, which happened often enough. This day, however, was quite different from most. Hildungr was looking for a beehive to raid for honey, and found one. Hildungr rose up on his hind legs and issued a challenge, which made the female rear up and turn around. Spying him, she suddenly shifted and he found himself looking at the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Not only that, but she was could change shape like he could. He immediately apologized for scaring her and the two began to talk. Like many men smitten by a beautiful woman, the conversation lead to his boasting about his shapeshifting prowess. She casually challenged him to a race. If he could catch her, staying in whatever form she took, he could have her. Needless to say, he started to race toward her and, as soon as she bounded away as a rabbit he changed to one too.
Some ways apart, Gunnlaug also happened to stumble upon a beauty who took his breath away. She was hunting with a spear as well and his arrival startled a deer that she had been about to attack. He apologized profusely and soon they were talking while they walked through the woods, Gunnlaug telling her stories of his hunting prowess while she listened on in disbelief. They soon crested a ridge and had a glorious view of the valley below.
“I don’t believe you,” the girl told Gunnlaug. “No one could be that great a shot.”
“Indeed,” Gunnlaug responded, confidently. “Name a target and I will prove it.”
On the other side of the valley, a deer burst out of the woods, followed by a stag. “Surely that stag is too far away to hit,” the girl goaded him. Without thought, Gunnlaug hefted his spear and pitched it, unerringly, to pierce the stag’s chest, clean through the heart. At that moment, he felt his world pitch as the stag seemed to shimmer. He ran across the valley, all the while keening Hildungr’s name. When he reached his spear, he found it though his brother’s chest and a wild beast, like none he’d ever seen before, lapping at the spilled blood.
He shooed the beast away and cradled his brother’s dead form in his arms. Soon the girl whom he had been trying to impress came up behind him. Had he been able to see her, he would have been terrified, for she was one of those monsters who feed upon despair and the feast that Gunnlaug was providing was a rich one. Stepping up beside her was another woman, the one that Hildungr had been chasing, with the same satisfied look on her face, though she also had blood upon her lips.
“Well,” the one creature said, attempting to wring more of this delicious despair from him, “I guess you can hit what you aim for.” The voice was the same but the tone was icy cold and malevolent. Gunnlaug grabbed the shaft of his spear and tore it out of his brother’s body, his despair turning to something else, something cold and icy and not at all tasty for the pair.
Turning he said, “That I can.” With that he cocked his arms and the two creatures sped away. But Gunnlaug’s aim was true and his spear, powered by the force of his vengeance, pierced through both creatures as they ran. Gunnlaug picked up Hildungr and carried him home, burned him on a pyre and then spent the rest of his life hunting down monsters.
The fire popped and Vafud was surprised to find the story at an end. “Is there a moral to that story?” he asked.
Bestemor laughed. “Does it need one, Vafud? It could be men should think with their heads, but there are enough people who follow their head and still end up in trouble,” she replied, pointing to his eye. “But, if you’re rested enough, I have one last lesson for you tonight. Take a look at this rune, called Ansuz.” She drew the rune in the dirt, using a stick.

“Ansuz is for communication. It has a lot of purposes, but the one I’m going to show you tonight is how to use it to get information from animals. First, take a look at the rabbit here, like you did when you were first learning it’s dyr-utform. Once you can see the pattern, apply Ansuz over it.” She waited until Vafud nodded. “Now, see a matching Ansuz located on your forehead.” Another nod. “In a moment, I want you to activate both the Ansuz on your forehead and the one on the rabbit’s pattern. Before you do, however, I want you to know what will happen.”
She gently placed the rabbit on the ground. “When you do that, you’re going to be communicating with the rabbit, seeing what it sees, hearing what it hears. You’ll want to close your eyes for the moment or you’ll have difficulty separating out your senses from the rabbits. Try it.”
Vafud closed his eyes and tapped the well of power flowing through him, connecting the two runes and letting out a little gasp as he saw the rabbit’s perception of the world. Bestemor spoke, her voice echoing weirdly as he heard it through both his own and the rabbit’s ears. “By increasing or decreasing the amount of power in the rune, you can increase or decrease how much of the rabbit’s senses you see compared to your own.”
Lessening the power applied to the rune he asked, “Do I have any control over the rabbit? Can I get it to move somewhere specific?” His voice was still an odd echo, hearing it through the rabbit’s ears as well.
He could hear Bestemor’s hair moving as he guessed she was shaking her head. “Just like a man, teach him a new trick and his first question is how he can control it.”
Vafud released the power in the run and opened his eye, managing to pull up as much dignity as he could. “I was only asking because I wanted to make sure that if I wanted to move I wasn’t going to cause the rabbit to move and possibly get hurt.”
Bestemor chuckled good naturedly. “No, you can’t control the rabbit, but you can sort of ask it. If you think really hard about the smell of some fresh veggies in a certain direction, the rabbit might follow your lead and go that way. Some more intelligent animals might actually be able to bargain and be taught to follow simple commands, but they’re still able to refuse.” She rose and poked the fire. “That’s enough for today, time for bed. Good night, Vafud.”
“Good night, Bestemor.” Vafud watched the fire for a bit before heading to his bedroll and drifting off to a fitful sleep.

8. The Third Night

Once again, he opened his eye to find himself suspended in the air, his staff still pinning him to the huge tree and the two ravens keeping guard. It hurt to breath but somehow he managed. He Kenaz and looked closer at the raven nearest him, focusing his sight on one feather and then one ridge and finally he saw the pattern. “If I change myself into a raven, I won’t be pinned to this tree anymore,” he thought, and started to see the pattern on himself. Suddenly, the ravens started to flap their wings and caw loudly, distracting him and causing him to lose the pattern. Once they settled down again, he looked at them quizzically. “Are you saying I shouldn’t turn myself into a raven?” he asked, not expecting an answer.  But one of the ravens shook its head at him and the other flew off. Pretty soon he heard a scrabbling on the wood behind him and turned his head to see the huge squirrel approaching again, water filled leaf in mouth.
Cautiously reaching out, he took the leaf in one hand and brought it to his mouth, drinking the  refreshing water down and eyeing the squirrel. Curious, he brought Kenaz to bear on the squirrel, but he found he couldn’t actually focus on anyone one part of the animal. As soon as he found a part to focus on, the parts seemed to resolve and refocus on the whole animal. Tired, he handed the leaf back to the waiting squirrel, “Thank you for the water, it has been very refreshing.”
The squirrel, head bowed in acknowledgement, chittered something and then took off up the tree. A sudden flapping of wings announced the return of the raven, who had a large bunch of grapes in his beak. The bird inched closer until he was able to take the proffered grapes and slowly ate them, savoring the sweet juice and pulpy flesh. When he was done, he brought Kenaz to bear on one of the ravens again, saying aloud, “I’m not going to change, I just want to talk.” The birds watched him as he focused in on the dyr-utform of the raven. Closing his eye, he overlaid Ansuz and powered it up, just a little bit, and felt the bird’s presence in his head. It was alien but he felt like he could almost communicate with it. He thought gratitude toward the raven for having brought him grapes and could feel the raven preen a bit. Releasing Ansuz, he closed his eyes and feel back into a deep sleep.
The two ravens watched the man and waited.

9. The Fourth Day

He woke up feeling more refreshed than he had in a couple of days. Bestemor was just stirring so he stretched, feeling that kink in his side and ignoring it, then got the fire going again and started breakfast. When Bestemor joined him at the fire, he handed her a mug and waited for her to settle down with breakfast. She took a couple of bites before saying, “What is it? I can read the question in your eyes from here.”
“It’s the wild versus domestic cattle, when you first introduced me to the runes. We changed a domestic bull to a wild one and back again with a simple rune. Are the dyr-utforms for cattle that similar to the runes, that simplistic?”
Bestemor finished her food. “No, and it’s a good question. Makes me think that gifting you with knowledge of the runes might not be a waste of time. No, don’t be offended. There is always the chance you’ll end up like Anak, but a question like this means it’s less likely.”
She refilled her mug. “The answer to your question is that, we aren’t really changing a wild bull to a domestic one. At their heart, they are both the same thing, a bull. There are differences between the two dyr-utforms, but they very close to being the same. What we did, when we applied the runes, was to change a part of them, their personality. While there are visual differences between the two, it’s really the personality that defines them When we apply the rune, we actually  modify their dyr-utform, but it’s really a minor enough change that it works.”
Vafud nodded. “That makes sense. Do all living creatures have a dyr-utform?”
“Pretty much.”
“What type of creature would it be that would cause Kenaz to continually focus on the whole of the creature rather than being able to see their dyr-utform?”
Bestemor eyed him a long time, thoughtfully sipping her mug. “There are some living things that don’t have dyr-utforms, because they are their pattern. Some creatures are so basically what they are, almost elementally, that they have no separate dyr-utform because they are their dyr-utform. Those creatures tend to be magical or mystical and, usually, very dangerous.” She drank some more in silence. “If you see one, my advice would be to avoid it.”
“Come on,” Bestemor said, standing, “Let’s get packed and on the road, we’ve got a fair pace to cover before your next lesson.” Everything was soon squared away and they were back on their way, traversing a forest.
“Can we take on the dyr-utform of a bird?” Vafud asked as they travelled.
“Yes,” she answered slowly, “but I wouldn’t recommend it until you’ve been doing this for a very long time.”
“Why?”
She chuckled. “Do you remember when you first took a rabbit’s shape and were bounced out of it by the overwhelming sensations?” Vafud nodded. “And you found yourself perched on the rock you had been sitting on, right?” He nodded again. “That’s because you had started to hop and were above the stone when you changed back. Think what might happen if you were flying along in bird form and something caused you to pop back into human form in the middle of the air.”
Vafud nodded thoughtfully, “Yes, I can see where that might be problematic.”
“Once your more experienced at this, when you can’t easily be startled out of a form, then you can try birds. In the meantime, let’s discuss runes in more detail. I told you that runes can be used to record stories. I needed to teach you other ways to use runes before I could teach you the common usage. Sometimes a persons head gets too set on the common and can’t accept the more arcane usage of a tool, even when they see it in action.” Bestemor pulled a small pouch out of her pack. “Now, there are 24 runes,” she continued, laying out three rows of 8 rune tiles. “Each rune has a name, a general meaning and represents a sound.”
Tapping the first two runes, Bestemor said, “You’ve used these two runes already but only focusing on their meanings. Fehu, the rune for domestic cattle, represents the F sound while Uruz is the rune for wild cattle and it represents the U sound.” One by one, Bestemor went through each rune, telling Vafud the name, meaning and the sound. They spent an hour going over them until Bestemor was confident that Vafud had the basics down. Then they broke camp and headed off.As they traveled, Bestemor quizzed Vafud, pulling a random rune from a bat at her waist and showing it to him, asking what the letter was called and what sound it represented.
When they broke for to eat, Bestemor took a stick and drew several runes in the dirt.

She looked at Vafud expectantly. “What are those runes?”
“Wunjo, ansuz, fehu,uruz and dagaz.”
She nodded. “Good to know this morning hasn’t been a waste of time. And what sound does each letter reprseent.”
“W, A, F, U, D,” he responded, and then got a sudden glint in his eye as everything came together. Pointing to each letter in turn, he strung the sounds together, ‘W-A-F-U-D,” he said, then as one word he repeated his name. Grinning, he grabbed a stick and quickly wrote

Then he looked up at Bestemor. “Did I spell it correctly?”
She nodded, “That’s how you spell Bestemor.” While she got out some bread and cheese, she called out various words and had Vafud spell them. Then they continued their travels, with her continuing to call out words and having Vafud spell them.
They stopped to make camp earlier than Vafud had been expecting. Once camp was set up, Bestemor reached into her pack and pulled out something rolled up. She took it over to Vafud and unrolled it, displaying line after line of runes. “This should keep you busy, both before and after supper. It’s a story that someone wrote down, one I think you’ll find interesting. Read it to me while I’m preparing supper. There’s a single mark between words, I think you’ll figure it out easily enough.”
With that, Bestemor turned to busy herself making a stew while Vafud started to translate the runes into speech. “Yng-var and Her-jolf” he read, sounding out the runes. “Isn’t that the story you told me the day we met?”
Bestemor chuckled while she chopped some root vegetables. “It’s the people I told you about, but I told you two stories that day, remember?” Vafud nodded. “So tell me this story while I cook.”
Turning back to the scroll of runes, Vafud began, haltingly at first but picking up speed as his competency grew.
Yngvar and Herjolf
Many years ago, when Men and Giants could still be friends, there lived two families, whose land was side by side. For generations they had been neighbors and peace had reigned between them. Many times one family would tend to the other’s land and help out with no need to ask, that’s just how neighbors work. Should one farm not have quite enough, then the other would share from their bounty, with no thought of keeping track of who benefited the most. Then came a time of joy for both families, with the birth of Yngvar to the humans and Herjolf to the giants, both boys born at almost the same time.
As the boys grew, they were frequently in each other’s company, sharing chores and playing together as hard as they worked together. They got in and out of trouble together and never kept anything from each other. They were that way for almost 14 years. Everything changed one fine fall day, after the harvest had been brought in and the two had a rare time to be off exploring. Though Herjolf towered over Yngvar, the two still ran together with no mind for the differences between them. “Yngvar,” Herjolf said, “I heard about a witch who lives in a cave on the bluff.”
Yngvar laughed, “We should go get our fortunes told!” Herjolf nodded and so they set out. The bluff was about an hours hike through the forest , the side of a hill that rose up from the surrounding forest a bald head in the canopy.
“There,” Herjolf said, pointing to a crevasse about 20 feet up the bluff. “That’s where she lives.”
“How does she get in? There’s no way down from the top of the bluff or up from the bottom.”
“She flies,” Herjolf said, seriously.
Yngvar pondered. “How are we going to get in?” This started a serious discussion between the boys and finally it was decided that, if Herjolf lifted Yngvar up, he could probably get him high enough to scrabble into the cave. Soon their plan was in action, and Herjolf braced himself against the bluff and helped Yngvar to stand on his shoulders. Herjolf then grabbed Yngvar’s ankles and hoisted him as high as he could. Yngvar’s waist was just below the lip of the cave and he reached in and found purchase for his hands one some of the rocks and was able to pull himself up, but it was a tight squeeze. Even if Herjolf had been able to reach the cave, he wouldn’t have been able to fit in. After assuring Herjolf he was fine, Yngvar started into the cave to find the witch.
Seeing what looked like light at the back of the cave, Yngvar started toward it, cautiously. As he moved through the cave, it narrowed until he was turned sideways and inching along. As the light grew brighter, he heard singing, though he couldn’t understand the words. After squeezing through one very tight spot, he found himself in a much larger part of the cave. A small woman stood in front of a cauldron hung over a fire, singing as she added items and stirred whatever was bubbling in the pot. While he couldn’t say for sure, she seemed to be singing to whatever she was making. Her singing stopped and she said, “Yngvar, son of Engli, you honor me with your presence.” She turned and dropped a low curtsey. “What can I do for you?”
“Are you a witch?” Yngvar managed to say.
She laughed, a soft tinkle that sounded like a brook rushing down a hillside. “That would be one word to describe me.” She looked Yngvar up and down, “Let me guess, you’d like your fortune told.” Yngvar nodded.
“The future is an undiscovered country best visited without a roadmap, are you sure you want to know?”  Yngvar nodded, eagerly. The witch sighed, a sound that wrapped bitter experience in the knowledge that fools must learn their own lessons. She walked over to stand in front of him. Though he was no giant, he was still much taller than she. She looked him in the eyes though and said, formally, “Yngvar, son of Engli, do you truly wish your fortune told?”
The room seemed to darken but Yngvar said, with all the formality a 14 year old can muster, “Yes, I wish to know what the future has in store for me.”
The witch’s eyes seemed to swallow him whole and she repeated, “Yngvar, son of Engli, do you truly wish your fortune told?”
“Yes, mistress witch, I want to know what the future has in store for me.”
Once more the witch said, more formally than before, “Three times I ask you, Yngvar, son of Engli, do you truly wish your fortune told?”
Without hesitation, even though the cave had gone cold and dark to Yngvar’s senses, he responded, “And I answer three times, I want to know what the future has in store for me.”
“Skuld,” the witch said gravely and suddenly she seemed to tower over Yngvar, her voice filling the cave and her face filling his vision.
“Yngvar, son of Engli, know well that what the Norn have in store for you. You live in a time of happiness and prosperity, but soon that will change. You will marry and be very happy but your parents will die soon after. There shall be a time of hardship because of choices you will make and you will know, in one day, hatred and bitterness and revenge and the futility of revenge.” As she spoke, each word seemed to be louder than the one before. As she finished speaking, Yngvar clamped his eyes shut and prayed for this to be over. The sudden silence assaulted his ears almost as much as the noise had. He opened his eyes and found himself facing a blank wall.
He turned and saw the entrance to the cave just a few feet behind him. He turned to face the wall again and then stepped back to the entrance. Poking his head out, he found Herjolf waiting for him, as though he had just helped raise Yngvar to the cave. Herjolf called out, “Too scared to go find the witch?”
Yngvar thought about what he had just experienced and shook his head, “No, the cave doesn’t go far, it’s ends about 10 feet back. There’s no one living here.”
“Well, let me get ready to help you down then.”
Yngvar lowered his legs out of the cave until he felt Herjolf’s firm grasp around his ankles and then he was back on the ground. They talked of many things on the way home, but Yngvar didn’t tell Herjolf about what he had seen in the cave. It was the first thing he had ever kept from his friend.
Later that year, Yngvar met Groa at a dance. They seemed to be destined for each other and were wed before spring. They had been married for just a few short weeks when Yngvar woke to the horrible sound of flames eating wood and discovered that his house, where he had been born and lived his whole life, was ablaze. While he and Groa got out, his parents had died in the fire. It was a difficult time, but Herjolf’s family helped Yngvar and Groa rebuild a new house, but it was never really a home for Yngvar.
The death of his parents hit Yngvar hard, and he was more often found drinking than working around the farm. His land suffered while Herjolf’s farm prospered, all because one farm was worked and the other ignored. For a couple of years, Herjolf tried to help out, but this caused Yngvar to become resentful, so Herjolf stopped. Once all of the livestock were gone from his own farm, Yngvar started to steal from Herjolf. While Herjolf tried to turn a blind eye, it got to be too much, and so he had a meeting with Yngvar.
“Yngvar, friend,” he started but was quickly interrupted.
“Don’t call me friend!” Yngvar roared at the giant. You’ve got an easy life and a prosperous farm. You stole all that should have been mine! I’ve seen you stealing my cows and my grain!” This drunken tirade went on for several minutes until Herjolf could take it no more. He finally said that he would have to kill anyone who was caught stealing.
Yngvar took another swig from a bottle that always seemed to be in his hand and said, “Then you’ll have to kill yourself, since you are always stealing my cows!” Herjolf left, saddened at what his friendship and friend had come to.
The next week, Yngvar told his wife about yet another cow that Herjolf had stolen and sent and his two boys out to get it back. After they had left, he realized that his jug was empty, so he went in search of something to fill it up.
Meanwhile, Herjolf was in his fields, tending his cows. He had just had to kill a fellow giant for attempting to steal from him two days ago and was in a very melancholy mood when he saw someone attempting to steal another of his cows, off at the far edge of the herd. He gave chase and, as soon as the thieves had seen him, the took off. Even  with his longer stride, they were far enough away when the chase started that it took him sometime to catch up with them. When he finally saw where they had gone to ground, his heart fell.
He ran up to the door of his old friend’s house and knocked, ordering them to let him in. Groa yelled that she would never open the door to a thief like him. They continued their shouting match for some time, hurling insults at one another until the door suddenly opened and Yngva’s two sons, 11 and 12, came at him with clubs and murderous intent. He tried to dodge them, because he didn’t want to hurt them but the older got a solid hit on his shin and the pain blinded him. When he could see again, all he could see were parts of three bodies scattered across the yard. Horrified at what he had done, he went off to clean up, and figure out what to do. A blood feud with his oldest friend was certainly not what he wanted, but he feared it was what the Norns had in store for him.
Meanwhile, Yngvar came home, his jug still empty, and the devastation that met his eyes filled him with rage. He took up his sword and spear and headed off to find Herjolf. When he got to Herjolf’s home, Herjolf wasn’t there, but his wife, son and daughter were, so Yngvar killed them in retribution for what Herjolf had done. Just as he was cleaning the blood off his sword, he heard a yell behind him and turned, throwing his spear in response, not even realizing there was a spear headed toward him. Both he and Herjolf had aimed true and both men fell with spear-pierced hearts.
Vafud looked up from the document at Bestemor, who was ladling stew into a bowl. “That’s amazing. If someone knew how to interpret the runes, they could read this and know the true story of Yngvar and Herjolf!”
Bestemor shook her head, sadly. “It is no more or less true than the other two stories. It all depends on who writes down the story.”
After supper, Bestemor shared more written documents with Vafud, including more stories but also some reports that people had sent about things happening in the world. By bedtime, Vafud’s head was spinning with possibilities of how useful this could be.

10. The Fourth Night

The pain suddenly arched through his body, forcing his head to slam against the bark behind his head. The movement also caused the two ravens perched on the staff pinning him to the tree squawked and lifted a couple of inches off the staff before settling back down. He looked at the staff and noticed, for the first time, something etched on the end of the staff, past where the ravens perched. The moon suddenly came out from behind the clouds and he could see, carved neatly in the staff, four runes that spelled out his name.
He looked at the ravens who sat calmly on the piece of wood pinning him to the tree. They both seemed far more intelligent than he thought ravens should be. He attempted to reach a hand out toward the nearest one but the act of moving made the pain from the spear lance through him and sent him back into unconsciousness.

11. The Fifth Day

Vafud woke before Bestemor, a strange pain radiating from his side. He sat bolt upright, breathing heavily until the pain subsided. “It must have been a stone or root that I missed when clearing my sleeping space,” he grumbled to himself. The sky was just beginning to lighten with the first hints of dawn so he stirred the coals to get the fire going and started work on getting breakfast going. When Bestemor roused, he got her food and they sat in companionable silence until after the meal was done and the breakfast stuff put away.
Bestemor pulled out her bag of runes and placed them in three rows again and pointed to the next to the last one in the first row. “What’s this?” she asked Vafud.
“Gebo,” he answered.
She nodded. “Very good. And do you remember what I first told you about Gebo?”
He thought back to that first night, “It means gift. You had asked the Norns for advice about me and that was their response.”
“Indeed. Yesterday you learned how to communicate with others using runes, today you’ll learn about communicating with the Norns. We’ll begin by going over what the runes mean. Each rune has a basic meaning, like Gebo meaning gift.” She pointed to the first rune in the row, “Or Fehu, meaning domestic cattle. But Fehu means more than that. A person who has several cattle would be wealthy, so Fehu can also mean wealth.” She picked up the two runes and set them down next to each other. 
“But there are other interesting facts about runes. Take Gebo, it looks the same whether it is right side up or upside down. Fehu, however, looks different when it’s upside down and thus has a merkstave. Fehu’s merkstave represents loss of wealth, or a similar meaning.” She placed Gebo and Fehu back in the ranks of runes and said, “Which runes have no merkstave?”
Vafud looked for a moment and then said, “Gebo, Hagalaz, Nauthiz, Isa, Jera, Sowilo, Ingwaz, and Dagaz.” Bestemor took the mentioned runes and put them in a new row, then turned each one upside down. As she turned the third one, Vafud said, “No, Nauthiz can be merkstave.” She nodded and put that one back and finished the row of runes that had no merkstave equivalent.
With that done, she turned to Vafud and said, “There are many ways to use runes to ask for guidance. We’ll start with the simplest, which doesn’t really worry about the meaning of the runes as much as whether or not they are regular or merkstave.” She gathered all the runes and put them back in the bag. Then she pulled out a skin that had an intricate set of lines covering it. “This, is a rune trassel. Starting in the center, you move this stone through the corridors, going straight until you reach a turn. Then, you ask the Norns for guidance and draw a rune. If it is a merkstave, you turn left. If it is not merkstave, you turn right. If it is a rune that has no merkstave you can go either way. If you are in tune with the Norns, following their advice will help you get to the end.” With that, she handed the bag of runes to Vafud and indicated the rune trassel.
He took the bag and moved the stone out of the center down the short corridor to where it branched. He drew out Ehwaz but the act of drawing out the rune caused a pain in his side. He took the right hand turn and put the rune back in the bag. At the next branch he drew Laguz, upside down, so he took the left hand turn and put the rune back in the bag. At the next turning he drew Othala and Bestemor said, “Turn left instead.” He did, and came up to a dead end. “See, it’s not just random chance. Go back and continue with the runes.” It took him awhile but he came to the end and exited his stone without running into another wall.
“This is the simplest type of rune casting. When you have a simple choice of one or another, this is what you do. If the answer is yes/no then the merkstave represents no, regular represents yes and those that have no merkstave mean that the answer isn’t relevant. But let us focus on some more meaningful casts. Put the runes in order before you.” Vafud dutifully withdrew the runes, placing them in three rows before him. Starting with Fehu, she went through the meanings and merkstave meanings of each rune, having Vafud repeat them back. WIth that done, she swept the runes back into the bag and handed the bag to Vafud and had him shake it to mix the runes and then draw them out, telling her the meaning of each rune.
She repeated this several times before continuing on to the next lesson. “Now, we shall move on to a more complex rune casting. This is the Norns casting, where you look at the past, present and future of whatever is vexing you. Before you begin, think clearly about the question you want answered. But there are some caveats to the kind of question you can ask. Remember that the runes can give you guidance more than they can give you specific answers. As the question gets more complex, the answers get more difficult to interpret. The broader the question, the more likely that the answer will be appropriate. Also, the Norns stick to the letter of the question so make sure you understand the question you are asking. Let’s try it now by asking what you’re going to get from this adventure you’re on.”
Vafud took the runes and put them back in the bag. “Concentrate on your question as you draw forth three runes, the first for the past, the second for the present and the third for the future.” Once he had done so, Bestemor asked him to look at the runes and interpret the casting.
“For the past I pulled Berkano, which represents new birth, a new undertaking with a good outcome.” Bestemor nodded approval. “For the present, I pulled Nauthiz, merkstave.” Vafud pondered for a bit. “Nauthiz represents need, but merkstave represents being forced into a need, possibly against my will.”
Bestemor nodded and said, “Don’t worry yet about what it all means, let’s look at the last rune first.”
Vafud said, “For the future, I pulled Fehu, wealth, prosperity.”
Bestemor nodded and then said, “So far, so good. Now, look at the three runes, the past, present and future laid out before you, and tell me the story that you read there.”
Vafud reached out a hand and gently brushed his fingers over Berkano and then Nauthiz. As his fingers brushed Nauthiz, he felt a sudden  twinge in his side. Finally he brushed his fingers of Fehu. “I think,” he began, pointing at Berkano, “this represents where I was when I started, perhaps before I met you. Nauthiz, I think, represents my trip with you. I don’t feel trapped but I think this trip and learning about the runes is something necessary for me. And Fehu represents that what I gain from the necessity of Nauthiz will be worth it.”
Bestemor nodded. “A sound reading, I think. I shall teach you one more casting, so you can ask the Norns a question I asked of you.” She waited while Vafud collected the runes back into their bag. “Ask them whether you should seek fame and fortune or knowledge. Then draw four runes, the first for the foundation of the issue. The second, placed above and to the left of the first rune for something that influences the issue. The third, placed above and to the right of the first rune, level with the second, for a second influence on the issue. And a fourth rune, directly above the first rune and on a higher level the the other two, to represent where your question can lead you.”   She watched while Vafud pulled four runes and placed them as she had directed.  He paused after each rune was placed, thinking and considering the answer he was receiving. Finally, when he was done, he looked to Bestemor who just nodded toward the runes, expectantly.
Vafud pointed to the first rune. “Tiwaz is the first rune, the one that indicates the basis of the issue, a rune that means honor and leadership and sacrifice. I think that signifies this question fairly.”
Bestemor chuckled, “Does that eye you’re missing have to do with sacrifices and this quest of yours?”
Vafud reached up unconsciously to touch his missing eye, and the act of reaching up pulled on the pain in his side, though he’d come to mostly ignore it in the last few days. “Yes,” he chuckled in rueful agreement, “I think that’s probably a fair assessment.” He pointed to the left hand rune and said, “The first rune that influences this decision is merkstave Uruz and the second is Dagaz. Dagaz represents clarity and breakthrough while merkstave Uruz represents weakness and ignorance. The last rune is Perthro, initiation into secret matters.”
Bestemor nodded and asked, “And how do you interpret the cast?”
Vafud thought for a moment and then said, “I think that the merkstave Uruz represents the vain and foolish attempt had I gone for wealth and fame. I have enough of that to suite me. While the Dagaz represents the quest for knowledge that you’ve helped me on, which leads directly into Perthro. I think this is the Norns saying that I chose wisely in choosing to follow you for knowledge of the runes.”
Before Bestemor could respond, there was a cawing from a branch above them where two ravens perched, both nodding their heads as if in approval of Vafud’s reading. Before Vafud could do more than see the ravens on the branch, the swooped down and settled themselves on him, one perched on either shoulder. Bestemor chuckled, “Looks like you have some friends.”
Vafud nodded, looking slowly from one bird to another. The bird on his left shoulder cawed as Vafud looked at him, the raven’s head tilting as it’s black eyes seemed to bore into Vafud, almost as though imparting some great information. Vafud’s eyebrows raised in astonishment as he said aloud to Bestemor, “This bird says it’s name is Huginn and it thinks I would make an interesting companion to travel with.” At this pronouncement, the other raven cawed and Vafud turned his head to his right shoulder to see that raven meet his eyes just as steadily. “And this is Muninn, who remembers traveling with me, though I am fairly certain I would have remembered such a companion.”
Bestemor chuckled again, “It would seem as if not all memory is of the past, perhaps. But it’s time to break camp and head out.” Vafud nodded and the two ravens took flight, landing on the branch again. Once camp had been broken and Vafud and Bestemor had started off again, the ravens took off as well, but they kept circling back to relay tidbits about the land through which they were traveling. While they traveled, Bestemor kept drilling Vafud on the meanings of the runes and asking about how possible combinations of runes might be interpreted.
When they stopped for lunch, Vafud said, “I must be quite good, you haven’t corrected any of my interpretations.”
At this, Bestemor started to laugh, laughing until she had her head between her legs, gasping for breath. Once she had recovered her breath, she held up a hand to forestall Vafud and apologized, “I am sorry, Vafud. It’s not you, but your assumption is a bit naive. Well, very naive. Oh, I will grant that most of your interpretations were sound, but interpreting rune casts requires a history of reading and determining how accurate your reading is based on what happens after the reading. The Norns and the Runes both respond to us and the situation we are asking about specifically. That means that one set of runes means in one cast may mean something totally different in another cast for another situation.”
Vafud sat, considering this. “I can see how that makes sense,” he said, nodding slowly.
As she prepared lunch, Bestemor sent Vafud off to find a fruit bearing tree, instructing him to find a branch about as thick as two of his fingers and straight. Then to cut the branch off and bring it back to camp. As he set off, Huginn and Muninn settled onto his shoulders and they quickly directed him to a suitable tree, an apple tree in blossom. He found the branch he wanted and then thanked the tree for the branch he was going to take and deftly chopped it off.
Returning to Bestemor, he ate and then she instructed him to clean the branch of all bark and extra limbs. Vafud sat near the fire, offering up the bark and small twigs to the fire as he cleaned the branch. Then, following Bestemor’s directions, he sliced the branch into a number of thin disks. Then Bestemor showed him how to etch a rune into the disk. After he cut each rune he would hand the disk to her where Bestemor would eye the rune critically. If it wasn’t perfect in her eyes, she would show Vafud his mistake and then toss the disk into the fire. While he was working on his runes, Bestemor spent her afternoon sewing together a bag made of a rich, red leather. It was nearing dusk by the time Vafud had a complete set of runes that met Bestemor’s strict requirements.
Bestemor took the bag she had been working on and held it open for Vafud to put his runes into. She then closed the bag with a drawstring and removed a rune trassel from her back, insisting that Vafud use it in order to test his runes. The Norns must have liked his runes for he completed the trassel without any mistakes and Bestemor declared herself pleased. She pulled out several more rune trassel for Vafud to work with, each increasingly more difficult and his runes worked perfectly. By the time he had finished, it was time for bed.
12. The Fifth Night
Vafud’s dreams were troubled. He didn’t know why but he could not get comfortable, tossing and turning. He remembered little of his dreams other than he was being chased. No matter how fast he ran, the menace was directly behind him. His side ached like the pain one gets from running too fast and breathing too hard. He kept almost waking up and then drowning back into his restless slumber. Above his bed, on the branch of a rowan tree, Huginn and Muninn watched.

12.1. Interval

The ravens sat watch on the man hanging from the tree. The squirrel brought something on leaves that the man ate. One raven turned to the other and cawed, nodding its head toward the man’s side opposite the spear, where a small bag now hung from the man’s belt, a bag that hadn’t been there before. The other raven nodded back, solemnly.
13. The Sixth Day
The sun broke on a clear day, waking Vafud from his restless night of what felt like waking nightmares. Bestemor was already stirring around the fire, getting breakfast ready. She handed him a mug of something and he drank it, feeling more refreshed as he drank more of the mug. He looked up to the branches of the rowan tree but they were empty. “Have you seen Huginn or Muninn this morning?”
Bestemor looked up in the tree, shaking her head. “No, can’t say I have, but I wasn’t looking either.”
They finished up their breakfast and were just breaking camp when two black blurs shot out from the sky to resolve on Vafud’s shoulder as the two ravens. They quickly began to caw at Vafud, whose head kept turning from one to the other as each spoke. Finally he turned to Bestemor, his face grim. “Anak has escaped his valley. Huginn and Muninn tell me that he has found our trail and is coming after us.”
Bestemor shook her head, slowly. “I was afraid this day would come. He is too strong for me to take on.”
Vafud took his bag of runes from his belt and quickly drew two of them out. Ehwaz merkstave and Isa. Bestemor looked at him curiously. “I asked the Norns for the two best weapons to help defeat Anak. Isa makes sense, if we could find someway to freeze him then there are a number of ways to deal with him. Where I live, when the winter gets truly fierce, you can sometimes hear tree branches exploding from the cold. If we had a way to generate enough cold we might be able to do something similar with Anak.” At this, Muninn let out a cry and spoke with Vafud for a bit.
Turning to Bestemor, Vafud said, “Muninn says there is a waterfall not too far from here, perhaps a half day’s walk, which runs clear and cold with snow melt from the mountains. He says the water is only a little warmer than ice.”
Bestemor nodded thoughtfully. “That might do, but how would you get him into the water?”
Vafud got up and started to pace. “Ehwaz, merkstave. That would indicate a lack of movement but how could that…” he trailed off and looked at the ground. Suddenly he was on the ground, drawing lines of runes. He made a circle of Ehwaz, all of them merkstave to the center of the circle. Then, he added a loop of Ehwaz to one end of the circle, big enough to hold him. Stepping into the loop, he turned and surveyed his handiwork. Then he tried to step out of the loop but couldn’t go against the merkstave Ehwaz. When he attempted to step forward into the circle, over the Ehwaz, he had no problem but once inside the circle, he couldn’t leave it until he reached a foot out and erased the line of runes.
“That’s a good start,” Bestemor commented. “But Anak could erase the runes just as easily as you did.”
“True,” Vafud conceded, “But I don’t need the runes to hold him long. I just need to hold them in the coldest spot possible so I can use Isa to freeze him.”
“And how are you going to place the runes in the water?”
Vafud kept pacing until his eyes lit on the fire where a couple of his runes that weren’t quite good enough for Bestemor’s critical eye lay on the edge of the fire, half burned. “I’ll carve them on branches that we secure to the stream bed. From Muninn’s description, the water is cold but not that fast moving.”
Bestemor nodded. “That could work, but Anak would have to be properly enraged not to see through it for the trap it is.”
Vafud smiled broadly, “I know how to take care of that. Let’s get over to the waterfall and get to work.”
They made their way to the waterfall and soon Vafud was taking long, supple branches and carving Ehwaz into them  and joining them together to form a box like trap. He laid this on the stream bed, anchoring it with rocks, with the end of the trap directly under the bone-chilling waterfall. By the time this was done, the sun was setting and Bestemor was putting dinner together. Huginn and Muninn had spent the day reporting back on Anak’s movements. As they ate dinner, Vafud sketched out his plan to use Isa and Bestemor recommended he sleep on it.
14. The Sixth Night
Vafud’s dreams were, if possible, even more restless than the night before. He tossed and turned and the pain in his side hurt more than ever. Still, even with that, he dreamt of ice and how best to freeze someone. He saw Anak standing with his feet trapped in ice and then a shard of ice falling from above as if to pierce Anak, but Anak’s runes easily diverted the shard, every time.
15. The Seventh Day
When he woke the next morning, he told his dreams to Bestemor. “Well,” she replied, “He does have runes covering him to act like a shield so it’s quite possible that Ice wouldn’t be able to penetrate his skin.”
Vafud sent Huginn and Muninn to find Anak and to see if they could find a chink in his runes. Then he set about with some flat stones, carving Isa into them to act as a way to trap Anak’s feet in ice. It was a long time before the ravens returned, and Vafud had almost completed his stones. The ravens landed on his shoulders and he listened intently to the two of them reporting to him. There appeared to be one spot, where his skull joined his neck, where there appeared to be a patch of skin not covered in runes. Relaying this information to Bestemor, Vafud said, “That’s what I needed to know. Now all I have to do is to lure him into the trap, and I know just how to do that.”
With that, Vafud started to stare intently at Bestemor, focusing on one of her hairs, attempting to discern her dyr-utforming. Suddenly, without warning, he started to feel dizzy, as if he were falling from a great height and his side wrenched with searing pain.

15.1. Interval

The ravens suddenly flew into the air as the man’s body spasmed and jerked. The motions were so violent that the bag hanging from his belt started to come loose. One of the ravens swooped in, pulling at the cords around the belt to tighten them and then darting away. As suddenly as the man started jerking he stopped, resting and panting.
16. The Eighth Day
When Vafud came to, he was in his bed roll and Bestemor was hovering over him, worried. “You silly, silly man. Humans are difficult to determine dyr-utforming for. I assume that what you were trying to do was to mimic me, to use my shape to attract Anak?” Vafud nodded. “There are easier ways to do that. Come, let’s eat breakfast and I’ll show you.”
As they ate, Bestemor said, “If you look at your own dyr-utforming, you will find you can understand what makes you you. And that enables you to make changes to how you appear. While you can’t change your base dyr-utforming, you can modify it enough so that others will see you differently. Try it, examine your dyr-utforming and see if you can change the color of your hair to grey.”
Vafud held one hand up in front of his face and stared at it intently, focusing in, deeper and deeper, until he saw his own dyr-utforming and he found he did understand it, he knew why his hair was red, why he had a beard and could see how to change them. With a thought, his hair became grey. Bestemor clapped, “See, I knew you could do it. It will take you some time and practice but you should be able to totally change your appearance, even to the point of being able to look like me. But I don’t think we have that much time before Anak gets here. But I can use a form of dyr-utforming to make you look like I do.” Almost as soon as the words were out of her mouth, Vafud felt different, but not in any way he could describe. Raising his left hand, he realized it didn’t look like his hand any longer, it looked old and much smaller.
“What,” he started to ask but stopped as his voice was a much higher pitch.
“I made a change to your dyr-utforming so that you look and sound like me. It’s temporary, and you can easily change yourself back. It’s a skill you can acquire easily enough, with practice. For now, however, Anak is only about an hour away. While you were asleep, I put the isa stones down for you and made you this.” She handed Vafud a stick, as long as his forearm, that had been whittled to a sharp point at one end and was covered with the straight lines that form isa. “Now, go, follow your ravens and they will lead you to Anak so you can bring him here.” Vafud nodded and headed off to follow Huginn and Muninn.
Soon after leaving, Vafud heard a horrible sound, like the enraged bellows of a beast in pain. Then he was close enough to see Anak, straight ahead of him, through a pair of trees. “Anak,” Vafud called, his voice sounding strange as he heard Bestemor’s voice coming through his mouth, “Are you looking for me?”
Anak turned, enraged, and made a beeline for Vafud, not even seeing the two trees in his mad rush, but getting wedged between them. Vafud considered taking the weapon Bestemor had given him and attacking Anak there, but, even as he considered this, the trees that Anak was wedged between started to move as Anak shouldered them aside. Vafud took off, just before Anak freed himself. The ravens led him back toward the waterfall. Soon he could hear the rush of water over the falls and the crash of Anak following him. Entering the small river, he sidestepped the trap and stood at the end of it, taunting Anak.
Anak stepped into the trap without even realizing it, totally focussed on his adversary. The water slowed him slightly but it was the end of the trap that stopped Anak fully, when he reached the line of merkstave Ehwaz. He raged against the border and Vafud stood, his weapon at the ready, unsure of how to reach Anak’s neck to plunge it in. Suddenly, he felt a change come over him and Anak’s eyes widened. Then Vafud saw Bestemor on the other side of the trap, calling out to Anak who spun and dashed to the other side of the merkstave Ehwaz, still pushing against them. Without a second thought, Vafud strode into the trap, raising his weapon high. Anak arched his neck toward Bestemor in an attempt to reach her and that bare spot was easily visible to Vafud. Plunging the weapon down Vafud concentrated all his energy on the intent of the meaning of Isa, ice.
Anak stopped moving, the water rushing over him starting to crystallize. Vafud continued to focus his energy and could feel when the energy from the weapon in his hand reached the Isa stones Anak was standing on and the two powers joined to turn Anak into a shimmering shard of ice. Without a second thought, Vafud picked up Anak over his head and started out of the trap, scuffing his feet to dislodge the limbs and undo the merkstave Ehwaz. Then, stepping back from the waterfall, he hurled the frozen Anak at the rocks that formed the back of the waterfall and watched as Anak broke into thousands of pieces. The pain in his side flared with the exertion and he staggered out of the water and collapsed on the bank.
Bestemor came over to him and held him as the pain slowly subsided. Then, with a strange word, she picked him up and took a step and they were back at her house. She carried him in and lay him on the bed where he into a deep sleep.

16.1. Interval

The body twitched and then lay still, stiller than the ravens had seen it before. It was pinned to the tree by the spear and even the blood that had slowly dripped along the spear shaft appeared to have stopped. The squirrel came by with a leaf filled with something, but the body didn’t respond, even to this. The ravens kept their watch as the sun set, as the moon rose and traversed the sky and as the sun rose again, yet now sign of life appeared. And yet the ravens waited.
17. The Ninth Day
Bestemor brought a steaming mug of something into the room and, covering Vafud’s head with a towel, she formed a tunnel for the steam to go to his nose. Whatever healing power the steam possessed seemed to do little as Vafud lay there. Bestemor pressed on Vafud’s side where she knew the pain would be but he barely responded. Shaking her head, she went back into the kitchen, opening a small cupboard and drawing out a flask from the very back. From this, she carefully let three drops of clear liquid drop into a small cup before sealing the flask again and hiding it away at the back of the cupboard. Returning to Vafud’s room, she poured the three drops into his mouth and watched as the liquid made its way to the back of his mouth, causing him to involuntarily swallow and soon Vafud was sitting up, smiling and asking if there was anything to eat.
Vafud and Bestemor spent the day chatting. Bestemor told Vafud that he had learned all she had to teach him and that his taking care of Anak was payment enough for what she had taught him. As the sun started it’s inevitable descent toward the earth, Vafud thanked Bestemor for her hospitality, picked up his traveling kit and headed down the road, back the way he had come. Soon, night was falling and he found a place to make camp. He thought it might have been where he had first woken up, the day he met Bestemor, but he wasn’t certain. He lay down and was soon asleep.
18. The Ninth Night
The moon rose over the tree, the two ravens saw the body impaled on the tree by the spear begin to breath again and settled on the man’s shoulders to continue their vigil. As the moon sank behind the horizon, before the sun’s glow was even a glimmer, the man began to stir. He opened his eyes and looked down. The ground could have been hundreds of feet below or inches, he couldn’t tell in the inky blackness. He grasped the spear that was pinning himself to the tree and pushed his back against the tree with all of his strength. Surprisingly, the spear came loose from the tree and from his body and he fell to the earth, just inches below where his feet had been dangling, the two ravens that had been on his shoulders flying up and settling to the ground to watch him.
The one-eyed man felt his side where the spear had pierced him, but there was no wound, only a very old scar and a matching one on the other side where the spear had passed through him. The first rays of sunrise were beginning to light the east and he noticed the two ravens on the ground. “Huginn? Muninn?” The two birds cawed in response. Then he noticed a bag, hanging from his belt. Taking it off his belt, he opened it up and pulled out a single rune, Berkana. With a smile, he imagined Ehwaz on his feet. The crows hopped into the air and the three of them were off to explore the world.

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