DeadEndShrineOnline/runes/24_othala.html

<title>Othala</title>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Runic_letter_othalan.svg"><img src="../img/runes/othala.svg" alt="Othala rune" title="Othala rune"></a></p>
<h1>Othala</h1>

<p>Traditional meaning: homeland</p>

<p>Meanings when upright:</p>

<ul>
	<li>your home and all you own</li>
	<li>inheritance</li>
	<li>lawful ownership</li>
	<li>stability and protection</li>
	<li>true freedom in having a secure base</li>
</ul>

<p>Meanings when inverted:</p>

<ul>
	<li>a need to reevaluate one's actions and priorities</li>
	<li>reconnect with the source of your strength</li>
	<li>homelessness</li>
</ul>

<p>Othala can be useful for:</p>

<ul>
	<li>ancestral work</li>
	<li>maintaining order</li>
</ul>

<hr>

<p>Anglo-Saxon rune poem:</p>

<blockquote>Eþel byþ oferleof æghwylcum men,<br>gif he mot ðær rihtes and gerysena on<br>brucan on bolde bleadum oftast.</blockquote>

<blockquote>An estate is very dear to every man,<br>if he can enjoy there in his house<br>whatever is right and proper in constant prosperity.</blockquote>

<p>There is not a Norwegian rune poem for Othala.</p>

<p>A modern poem:</p>

<blockquote>
	<p>I fear I am being driven mad<br/>
	by forces I do not understand,<br/>
	have no hopes of coming to terms with,<br/>
	much less explaining to kin and kith<br/>
	this world that I belong to,<br/>
	these spirits I must be in league with.</p>

	<p>For this is<br/>
	the inheritance<br/>
	of my blood,<br/>
	this homeland I carry everywhere I go<br/>
	and cannot ever hope to escape from.<br/>
	These three errant and conflicting strains<br/>
	each with its own legitimate claim<br/>
	over my body, my heart, my soul.</p>

	<p>There's a fourth that dormant within me resides,<br/>
	but it hasn't reared its head in a very long time.<br/>
	Neither do I miss it, no blessing it could give<br/>
	but instead the curse of a biological imperative<br/>
	that I would sooner from me excise.</p>

	<p>Unlike my siblings of lives long gone by,<br/>
	I do not accept that it is my duty<br/>
	to create a world and in the process die.<br/>
	What is the point, if at the end,<br/>
	I am not still living?<br/>
	What is the point of fulfilling it when,<br/>
	if I perished in the process, you could never be happy?</p>

	<p>If one of them could awake from oblivion<br/>
	and on this gnarly life of mine pass judgment,<br/>
	what would they say?</p>

	<p>"How well you retained a sense of individuality.<br/>
	Tell me, Lethe, would you consider yourself among the happy?<br/>
	Was it worth the sleepless nights, the gut twists, the migraines,<br/>
	all to your duty as a Meridian abdicate?"</p>

	<p>And to that, I would take my lover's hand<br/>
	and whisper, "Yes, I think the aches<br/>
	in my bones will be worth the wait.<br/>
	Maybe you never knew this, sibling.<br/>
	Maybe you never understood<br/>
	homes don't have to be built by sacrifice<br/>
	and <i>I don't think they should.</i><br/>
	I don't know what gave birth to me<br/>
	or if of life they'd still think me worthy,<br/>
	but I care not. My lover<br/>
	is the only standard<br/>
	I recognize,<br/>
	and this new world built by these<br/>
	hands of mine<br/>
	the only homeland."</p>
</blockquote>