I'm a little rusty, but there was conflict, initially. Then they settled their grievances and came to a level of cooperation and intermarriage.

I found this for a quick reference:
https://norse-mythology.org/tales/the-aesir-vanir-war/

I thought so too, Grym. There must be some kind of a conflict if they have to be segregated, no?

Obviously the forum has been quite inactive for some time, but just to assuage any possible concerns of it's demise....well, that just ain't gonna happen. Or at least, as long as I'm around, anyway.

Even though it's years old, I put far too much time, love, and effort into the forum to allow that, even creating nearly every image and icon from scratch;  so the (IMO) world's premier English language rune forum will always be here for those who desire it's resources.

In the lore, the Aesir and Vanir have shared cooperation and marriage now for thousands of years; I wouldn't think one would have to strongly segregate them, they are more complimentary than competitive to one another.

Hi Heks, remember me? Are you still playin?

My latest thing is an obsession with the 1st person/3rd person RPG video game "Skryim", part of the Elder Scroll series from Bethesda.
The country of Skyrim is a northern most part of the fictional continent of Tamriel, and it has an irrefutable parallel to Scandinavia and Nordic/Germanic lore.

RPGs were never my thing before, I always went for action oriented first person shooters if anything, but this game was not what I expected of an RPG.  It handles and plays out very much like a first person shooter for the most part, only with depth of story and a massive game universe, an entire country to explore. The graphics and music are gorgeous.
I love the whole Nord background to the thing;  Nords, elves, trolls, draugrs (yes, draugrs!) even an extinct dwarvish species is a main component of the lore.  Oh, and dragons.  And mead.  Lots of mead! 
Time to dive back in...

So I got Galin Krasskova's book Runes: Theory & Practice and started the galdr exercises. Yesterday I took some time to try the uruz rune. My craft name Ula is the opposite of the ale rune and I decided to start with my name. So I was doing the exercise and imagining this huge auroch all hairy and red with this horns protecting his herd and while 'singing' the rune I just blurted out Thor's name.

Now I have no relationship with Thor and have never had an interest. I tend to focus on the Vanir and just, I guess as a "modern" women, say Thor is not really necessary to me. So I saw Thor as the protector for once not because we are weak but because he has instinct and insight we might not have. I decided a long time ago that my husband and I have roles and those fit in well with my Heathen beliefs so why all of a sudden not think I need guardianship? If walking through a prison would I shun a guard escort? Heck no! So why am I blocking out Thor who can give me insight to strangers I meet as to who is good for my family and who isn't'.

It was a big deal for me. So since I have no kindred except online I thought I would share the experience. For the first time since actively acknowledging my Heathen practice I have a understanding of Thor I have put off and would consider getting and wearing a Hammer.

Having recently revisited a lot of the OE poems, and have gone over them with a fine tooth comb and a swath of OE - MnE dictionaries, I've made a few enlightening discoveries.
One of them is that my initial take on the poem is right.

The key word in this poem here is ðamðe, which, being cognate with ære, (AKA modern "ere"), means "before" or "until".
It was hard to track down, being rare, but I found it here:
From this book/site: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31543/31543-h/files/dict_ac.html#word_aeqr

Line by line, word by word, this poem says, literally:

Rad byþ on recyde rinca gehwylcum

Riding (Rad) is (byþ -be-ith) in the hall (recycde) for every (gehwylcum) warrior(rinca)
Here, rinca can sometimes mean simply "man", but the average Anglo Saxon man did not have access to a horse, that was for the nobles and warriors only.

sefte ond swiþhwæt,
comfortable/easy (I would assume sefte is the origin of "soft") and strong/heroic.

ðamðe sitteþ on ufan meare mægenheardum

UNTIL (ðamðe ) he sits high upon ( on ufan) a horse (meare) which is very powerful (mægenheardum)

ofer milpaþas.

over (ofer) the high roads. (milpaþas).

To me, this rune is not so much about a journey, but brings home the point of, "it's easier said than done".
I think it also says, "put your money where your mouth is". 
Perhaps there's even a warning here against bragging, or maybe a call to motivation. "Are you going to talk about it, or do it?"

For that reason, I wonder if maybe "undertaking" or even "attitude" wouldn't a better interpretation than "journey".

The Anglo Saxon poem:

Nyd byþ nearu on breostan;
weorþeþ hi þeah oft niþa bearnum to helpe
and to hæle gehwæþre,
gif hi his hlystaþ æror.

Trouble is distressing to the heart;
yet often it proves a source of help
and salvation to the children of men,
to he who heeds it beforehand.

With my trusty Anglo Saxon dictionary in hand, I've been delving deeper into the most literal translations possible.
With Nauthiz, something interesting came up.
The first line is straightforward:
Nyd is (byþ "be") distressing, oppressive (nearu) to the heart/bosom (breostan)

In the second line, however, which reads, weorþeþ hi þeah oft niþa bearnum to helpe,  it seems typically assumed that the word  "yet" or "however" is "weorþeþ" (weorth-eth).  
Only it isn't, because "þeah" is that word.  "Weorþeþ means something completely different: It comes to be, it shall pass, becomes, turns to, etc..
"It shall come become, it nevertheless (is) often (that) strife bears forth help"

To work that out, here are the all of the words in that sentence:
weorþ(eþ): It will come to be, to pass, become.. tranform?
hi:          he, they, it
þeah:      however, nevertheless
oft:         often
niþa:       strife, oppression, envy, hate  -close as I can tell. The exact spelling is not in my dictionary, but niđ is, and it means strife;  very likely related to nyd, which is in fact the OE name for Nauthiz.
bearnum: To bear, bring forth, a source of, son, child, descendant
to:          to
helple:     help

I could be off the mark a bit, but it's as close as I can get for now. From an excellent online OE dictionary¹I found, there is this:

The next line is more troublesome for me:
"and to hæle gehwæþre"
hæle is translated as "salvation" but also healing..I rather prefer the latter being closer, though there may be a relation to the word "holy" here too.
The trouble word for me here was "gehwæþre".  
The first two letters, ge, is an OE prefix, (often indicating a perfective form of a verb²) the root word here being hwæþ or hwæþre.  Now, a very similar word, hwæþer,is in my book as meaning "Whether", as in "whether or not.." but that makes little sense here.
However,  in the online OE dictionary¹, I found the exact word:
hwæðre means nevertheless, though the "ge" prefix is a bit odd.  Thus, (ge)hwæðre is very similar to þeah in meaning. Perhaps it's OE grammar that explains the difference between the two.  I also suspect that the ending "re" is a suffix as well.
The big question is, where did this "Children of men" bit come from? There's nothing remotely like that in this poem!  Yet it's a common translation.
In my opinion, this line says something more along the lines of  "and to provide salvation notwithstanding", which is a bit redundant, but that's how it seems to read. Perhaps it was to drive the point home.

The last line is simple enough at least:
gif hi his hlystaþ æror.

If he
hlystaþ: listens - pays attentions to, heeds
æror:     beforehand

So, my personal, most strict interpretation would be thus:

     Need is distressing to the heart
     Certainly nonetheless often strife bears help
     and healing, however
     if he listens/heeds beforehand

This leads one to assume some kind of warning is present, that one can "read the signs". There is something of value here, and the situation need not be dire and the whole thing can be overcome and chalked up to a learning experience.

Well, there are certainly worse runes one could get in a reading.

¹http://home.comcast.net/~modean52/oeme_dictionaries.htm
²http://acunix.wheatonma.edu/mdrout/grammarbook2005/tricks.html

Old English Poem:

Lagu byþ leodum langsum geþuht,
gif hi sculun neþan on nacan tealtum
and hi sæyþa swyþe bregaþ
and se brimhengest bridles ne gym[eð].

The ocean seems unending to men,
if they must dare to venture on the unstable ship
and the waves of the sea greatly terrify them
and the sea stallion heed not its bridle.


I recently read a slightly atypical interpretation of Laguz that opened my eyes. The interpretation came from the excellent book "Wyrdworking - the Path of a Saxon Sorcerer" by Alaric Albertsson.  I'll be doing a review of this shortly, I'm not done reading it yet.

Whereas most rune workers seem to focus on water as "intuition", mystery, and psychic ability, when not a literal interpretation, I feel those connections are more Greco-Roman, medieval, and new age in origin. Water is associated with the feminine through the tidal manipulation of the Moon, which goes through a cycle closely aligned with the menstrual cycle.  Thus, Women=Moon=Tides=Sea. The feminine aspect is also linked to psychic ability.
Additionally, one cannot see underneath the surface of the ocean, deepening it's mystery.

This is all well and good, but it's not what the Rune poem is specifically referencing, and there is no evidence that the Nordic and Germanic traditions ever made these associations themselves. I believe if that's what the original author(s) intended to indicate, they would have. One can play the association game, connecting one thing to another, in an unending chain, until you no longer have anything remotely resembling the original subject matter. Where does one draw the line and say, "far enough" or "too far"?  The ancient Norse and Germanics did indeed use kennings, but they didn't beat around the bush in such an obscure manner.

Looking at the poem again, line by line, here it what it states, as best as I can translate.  I'm not an Old English scholar (I have studied it some) but I do have the benefit of the book,  "A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary".  Win!


Lagu byþ leodum langsum geþuht
Lagu (Sea, Lake, Ocean) "seems" or "is thought" (geþuht) unending, tedious (langsum) to men (leodum).
It's a huge expanse, and it seems like it will never end.  This is important.

gif hi sculun neþan on nacan tealtum
If they are obliged (sculun) to dare to adventure (neþan¹) on an unstable, precarious (tealtum) ship (nacan).  Here, tealtum is the adj form of tealt, probably cognate with "tilt".  
A ship on the ocean certainly rolls and tilts. That is fairly normal behavior when deep out at sea. This is the one place I slightly disagree with Alaric Albertsson:  he translates the line as essentially an unworthy, unsteady ship and takes the point of view that the ship is somehow built sub par, and that it reflects on the sailor (or divinatory querent) as inadequately prepared for the task.  I'm not sure I agree. He places the emphasis of Lagu on the ship, rather than the water.  Any OE dictionary will tell you however that Lagu, and all it's cognates, means water.
It all hinges on the exact meaning of "tealt".  It seems most likely to me however that the line simply refers to the fact that a ship, any ship, no matter how constructed, will roll on the waves and be unstable. It's simply part and parcel of sailing.  
I think it's a reference to the raw power of the sea, and if you want to travel on it, it will take nerves of steel.
Despite my difference of opinion here, overall the message is the same, and he opened my eyes to what the poem was really saying. That'll teach me to read things for what they truly say and try not to let other populist ideas obscure the meaning.
One other thing to mention:  "sculun" or sculan, is OE for "must", "to be obliged", "bound",  to "have to";  so it's not that they want to do this kicks, but that they are obligated to do this, most likely to provide for themselves and their family or community.

and hi sæyþa swyþe bregaþ
And the sea-waves (sæyþa) greatly (swyþe, swiþe) terrify them (bregaþ)  .
This is clear enough.  It's scary to see waves looming over you when deep out to sea.  Sailing puts your courage to the test.  (BTW, "hi" here does not mean "high", it means "they".. hi bregaþ -they (of seawaves) are terrified.)

and se brimhengest bridles ne gym[eð]
And the sea stallion (brimhengest)heeds not it's bridle
Clearly here "brimhengest" (sea stallion) is a kenning for a ship, and heeding not it's bridle refers to difficult control, obviously.  Should the sea get rough, even the best ship may be at the sea's mercy.

So what I take from this is, to paraphrase Mr. Albertsson, Lagu represents is a dangerous undertaking that may be more than you can handle.  I'll add,  but you probably have no choice.  It's a difficult challenge, without guarantee of success. It's also unpredictable, the ancient mariners couldn't know when a storm wouldn't suddenly well up on them.  
Lagu also ties in nicely with Sowilo, which says:

The sun is ever a joy in the hopes of seafarers
when they journey away over the fishes' bath,
until the courser of the deep bears them to land

It's apparent that the sun is quite a relief to seafarers, it provides them with guidance and navigation, and implies the anxiety that sailors must endure.

Last word:  I never realized before what a negative rune Laguz truly is. The wide open sea is a scary place to have to travel. I'm glad I don't see this rune too often.



¹ http://books.google.com/books?id=oZ03AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA166&lpg=PA166&dq=tealtum+%22old+english%22&source=bl&ots=oJEg_bxMVq&sig=zrW8Hn7fDknalCAW_bYSgtPBA5A&hl=en&sa=X&ei=zq2mT4eSNomJ6QHf4JSpBA&ved=0CKsBEOgBMAU#v=onepage&q=tealtum%20%22old%20english%22&f=false