Can I add also two for the Old English rune row? The English Runes: Secrets of Magic, Spells & Divination, by Suzanne Rance, & The Old English Rune Poem: A Critical edition, by Maureen Halsall. The English runes are often overlooked, have their own poem, & underpin what we know of the runes. Ta.

Victoria, thank you. That's very much appreciated.

I saw you had an enormous response. Glad of that.

Thank you too for the original prompt. 🙂

Maybe, Freyr, even. Sat on Hlidskjalf, returning home distraught, despondent, despairing...

Hretha (Old English), as one who might get us through the lean months.

The skiers & skaters, Skadhi & Ullr.

Hel, with her home, 'Dashed-with-snow'

Frau Holda, or Berchta, shaking out the eiderdown...

Wishing you the best, Beth

That is very much appreciated, truly. Many thanks.

I wonder if the originators of the design had any consideration of any possible magic meaning

First, and perhaps superficial thoughts:

Hail + Birch - a contradiction, perhaps - destruction & growth. But then, the OERP talks of the hail turning to water, supporting growth. So a flattening of what goes before, followed by a resurgence of something new?

Poetry's tricky enough to talk about most times, & made more tricky on these platforms... Still, we can try.

The multiculturalism is the thing I miss most

Also, quite possibly, that thoughts of a better time just occur to us all, as an escape from whatever anxieties we currently face.

'I remember a time I was carried everywhere, fed always, kept dry, bounced on a knee...', that kind of thing.

I'd love them to listen a bit to the audiobook I made, of my book, The Knotsman.

Telling of the life & times of a Cunning-man in C17th England. His art? The untying of knots.

The voices are mine, & a sample can heard via the link.

Thank'ee.

www.spiracleaudiobooks.com/audiobooks/t...

🤣

A noisy & uncontrollable cry🙂

I like them for the sense of surrender, & for the feeling that all the time you were in one, 'blubbering' or 'blubbing' even, you were being held by... something.

A blubber, that's always handy... ta

It's always been about the relationships & the worthship, so I don't think of myself as doing magic,

Except, I know there is magic in being connected to breath & to feeling, & magic in words, & magic in the poetry I write & perform.

And a poem is a kind of ritual, a rite of passage.

This may or may not help, but it is a lovely song, by Josienne Clarke

youtu.be/YVyOmZfvKu8?...

yes, marvellous show