#kauna

Kauna is my mandatory edgy rogue character, and I absolutely love her. She's an assassin who wants to follow the story of her life and become a worthy warrior for Valhalla.

Rune a Day Project - Day 14 - November 14, 2021 - Kenaz

Day 14 of my rune a day project. Today I drew Kenaz, meaning "torch" or "beacon" according to the Anglo-Saxon rune poem, but "ulcer" or "boil" in the old Norwegian rune poem. As "torch", it represents inspiration, creativity, fire, warms, disclosure, passion, enlightenment, knowledge (esp. ancestral revelation), discovery, artistry and craftsmanship, technical aspects of magic, vitality, quest for truth.

Another rune that makes big changes from runeset to runeset. It can look like these, too: ᚳ ᚴ

There's some debate over the meaning of this rune. Most esoteric guides say it means "torch", and has the representations I listed above. However, the meaning "ulcer" and "boil" have to be considered as well.

This got me to thinking about the names/meanings of runes, and what, if any, effect modern definitions of names and meanings will have over time. It's like the words we have in Modern English that used to mean something very different; look at the source and history of the words "cheat", "cute", "flirt", "artificial", "weird" (of course, we pagan/heathen types that one we know well) and "meat".

By the way, I've been learning Norwegian as a side project this year, and the word for all solid food is "mat", which is what the word "meat" (or "mete") used to mean in English!

I'm also a big fan of the podcast "The History of English", by Kevin Stroud (https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/). It's a fantastic introduction to the topic for us regular people, and I've been listening to it for years.

Perhaps, just as languages have changed over time - and our alphabets have changed over time - so could the runes change, based on we moderns *assigning* them meaning. Just because our ancestors assigned this or that meaning, it doesn't mean we can't reinterpret them for modern times and modern revived pagan faiths (which are themselves, by necessity, chock full of reinterpretations, borrowings from various sources, and a health dose of modern UPG).