#Flinger Ken

[almoststedytimetravel]

Nymmmmm.... Had a day at work..... S.E.E.S Arknights AU......

[thorraborinn]

Really interested in the yr rune but I’m having trouble finding information on it that isn’t “death rune” garbage. Could you point me in the right direction?

Sure, that is one of the more difficult ones to find good info on because the Icelanders who did a lot of compiling of poetic material didn't totally understand it. The /ʀ/ sound that it wrote in early Old Norse was long gone, and by the 1700's /y/ was gone too. If I remember correctly, Grunnavíkur-Jón Ólafsson wrote that it came "from Ireland" -- participating in a long tradition of attributing things that are difficult to explain to people the audience won't know anything about. Several hundred years earlier, Ólafr hvítaskáld, author of the Third Grammatical Treatise, said it came from Hebrew (and although he was talking out of his ass there is a possibility that he was slightly less off than you'd imagine).

The best source concerning rune meanings is Inmaculada Senra Silva's "The Significance of the Rune Poems" available here: https://idus.us.es/handle/11441/15113. It's believed that while it's graphic shape and use in writing came from the *algiʀ/elhaʀ rune ᛉ/ᛦ, that it's name and meaning come from the *ī(h)waʀ rune ᛇ. So if you're interested in the history of the rune before Nordic-specific developments, you will want to read about that one in the Old English Rune Poem.

The word ýr literally means 'yew (tree/wood)' but it's actually somewhat rarely used that way in Old Icelandic. Generally ýr means 'bow,' though there is surely some selection bias because so much of Norse poetry is about battle. The Old English and Norwegian rune poems refer to a tree, but in Iceland (where yews didn't grow) the poem and kennings refer to a bow.

Old English Rune Poem (Halsall 1981):

The yew is a tree with rough bark, hard and firm in the earth, a keeper of flame, well-supported by its roots, a pleasure to have on one's land.

Old Norwegian Rune Poem (my translation based on editions in Senra Silva):

ᛦ is the tree (which is) greenest in winter; it is expected that, that which burns, scorches.

Icelandic Rune Poem (my translation):

ᛦ is a bent bow and unbrittle iron and arrow-thrower.

In Sweden its name had changed by the early modern period when evidence for the Swedish Rune Poem was being compiled. Senra Silva (p. 252) has stupämaþr ('fallen/sloped/stooped man') and oRmahr; Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen (edited from Stiernhielm) gives Aur madur (and translates 'rich man', from öre, money/currency); presumably this is all reinterpreted based on the visual similarity to the maðr 'man' rune ᛘ.

Here's a selection of dylgjur collected by Jón Ólafsson, with my quick, rough, sloppy translation:

bendur bogi 'bent bow'

fífu fleytir 'arrow-flinger'

Fenju angur 'Fenja's (giantess's) grief'

bogi spenntur 'tensed bow'

tvíbentur bogi 'twice-bent bow'

uppdreginn álmur 'drawn-up elm'

skotmáls ör 'projectile-range's arrow'

píla á streng 'arrow on a string'

bardaga gagn 'battle-gear'

fífu fax 'arrow's mane (fletching?)'

handa raun 'hands' trial'

firða armbrysti 'men's crossbow'

stutt fjör 'short life'

ævibann 'life-ban'

fár fugla 'birds' misfortune'

See also: "Runes, Yews and Magic" by Ralph Elliott.

If you're more interested in how it was used in writing, that's complicated and I'm not sure of anything written that breaks it down, but that's something I'll hopefully be working on eventually. The overly-simplified version is that it was used to write the r-like /ʀ/ sound that comes at the end of many Old Norse words until that sound was lost; it was also used to write a few vowels and ultimately settled at /y/, in accordance with the principle that runes should have a name that indicates their phonological value in writing.

Here's a selection of appearances (including Elder Futhark algiʀ/elhaʀ):

By sheer numbers, short twig ᛧ is probably most common. The two-sided arrow shape ᛨ is distinctively Icelandic.

[bookdragonwrites]

Okay, a bit of bonus waffle.

'In some ways the Channel was a road, Noé reflected, just not one for creatures of the land like himself. It made a connection between the sandy North Sea to his right and the vast Atlantic Ocean to his left. A wide, well-travelled whale road.' (And They Lived, Ch 2.2)

'Whale road' is a kenning, which is a poetic, metaphorical phrase to describe a common (to the genre) concept in Old English and Old Norse poetry. Instead of 'ship', 'sword', or 'wind', you might say 'sea-steed', 'wound-hoe' (as in the gardening tool), or 'breaker of trees', respectively. You might call Vanitas 'Book-wielder' or 'perpetrator of smirks', or refer to Noé as 'blood-psychic' or 'Vanitas-flinger' (sorry not sorry, and yes, that last one is a bit of a double entendre).  'Whale road', as you might have guessed, means 'sea', and is found in Beowulf (among other poems). I used it a bit more specifically to refer to the Narrow of Calais (somewhat ironically).

Why is Noé, a 19th-century Frenchman, quoting medieval Germanic poetry? No clue. I just like to be 'literary' sometimes. We can just pretend he read a translation of Beowulf at some point and somehow it stuck, can't we? Kennings are cool and should be used more.

[jon-darling]

Ken Barlow's left Coronation Street

— Phantom flan flinger (@phantom_flinger) February 9, 2020