Futhark, Milk Vetch, Hard Fern @ The Gambler Mag

There has to be a justification for the camera, which is the point of view, in order for it to be believed it is not staged. Why is that Inuit, rescuing a polar bear at sea, being filmed. Who holds the camera? What don’t we see. The problems of point of view go on. That’s what makes Futhark interesting. What is the point of view, whoever holds the camera of the tale, the child born, the language of the tale that at the same time walks with his sons in the sea and mountain as they three share life together? The raising of sons is a heritage of regeneration, forgiveness and reconciliation-- to one another, to themselves and to the same being and beings they share, live with and celebrate.  here but now saved HERE

--- Milkvetch--Your presence softens my pains. Language of flowers. Astragalus, increases the secretion of milk in goats. A few Astragalus species have been used medicinally by humans and have recently been touted as promoting longevity by activating the enzyme telomerase, though little clinical evidence supports these claims. Researchers are also studying milkvetch extracts as a potential drug to combat AIDS. In Greek, “Astragalos” is the name of the anklebone, and was used by the ancients as dice in games of chance (thus the gambler’s slang term of “bones” for dice). When shaken, the anklebones made a rattling sound, not unlike that of dried fruit pods of many pea species. Linnaeus applied the name to the group of peas commonly called milkvetches or locoweeds.

--Hard Fern--Blechnum spicant, called deer  fern, Blechnum spicant, grows near Deildartunguhver. This fern grows nowhere else in Iceland. Deildartunguhver is a hot spring in Reykholtsdalur, Iceland. Root - cooked. An emergency food, used when all else fails. Young shoots (often called croziers) - cooked. The young tender stems can be peeled and the centre portion eaten. An emergency food, it is only used when all else fails. It is also chewed to alleviate thirst on long journeys.

Some of the mileau behind this:

The skalds employed complex kennings in which the determinant, or sometimes the base-word, is itself made up of a further kenning: grennir gunn-más “feeder of war-gull” = “feeder of raven” = “warrior” (Þorbjörn hornklofi: Glymdrápa 6); eyðendr arnar hungrs “destroyers of eagle’s hunger” = “feeders of eagle” = “warrior” (Þorbjörn Þakkaskáld: Erlingsdrápa 1). Where one kenning is embedded in another like this, the whole figure is said to be tvíkent “doubly determined, twice modified”.^[4]

Frequently, where the determinant is itself a kenning, the base-word of the kenning that makes up the determinant is attached uninflected to the front of the base-word of the whole kenning to form a compound word: mög-fellandi mellu “son-slayer of giantess” = “slayer of sons of giantess” = “slayer of giants” = “the god Thor” (Steinunn Refsdóttir: Lausavísa 2).

If the figure comprises more than three elements, it is said to be rekit “extended”.[4] Kennings of up to seven elements are recorded in skaldic verse.[5] Snorri himself characterises five-element kennings as an acceptable license but cautions against more extreme constructions: Níunda er þat at reka til hinnar fimtu kenningar, er ór ættum er ef lengra er rekit; en þótt þat finnisk í fornskálda verka, þá látum vér þat nú ónýtt. “The ninth [license] is extending a kenning to the fifth determinant, but it is out of proportion if it is extended further. Even if it can be found in the works of ancient poets, we no longer tolerate it.”[6] The longest kenning found in skaldic poetry occurs in Hafgerðingadrápa by Þórður Sjáreksson and reads naustablakkshlémánagífursdrífugimslöngvir, which simply means "warrior".

Kennings could be developed into extended, and sometimes vivid, metaphors: tröddusk törgur fyr [...] hjalta harðfótum “shields were trodden under the hard feet of the hilt (sword blades)” (Eyvindr Skáldaspillir: Hákonarmál 6); svarraði sárgymir á sverða nesi “wound-sea (=blood) sprayed on headland of swords (=shield)” (Eyvindr Skáldaspillir: Hákonarmál 7).^[18] Snorri calls such examples nýgervingar and exemplifies them in verse 6 of his Háttatal. The effect here seems to depend on an interplay of more or less naturalistic imagery and jarring artifice. But the skalds weren’t averse either to arbitrary, purely decorative, use of kennings: “That is, a ruler will be a distributor of gold even when he is fighting a battle and gold will be called the fire of the sea even when it is in the form of a man’s arm-ring on his arm. If the man wearing a gold ring is fighting a battle on land the mention of the sea will have no relevance to his situation at all and does not contribute to the picture of the battle being described” (Faulkes (1997), pp. 8-9).

Snorri draws the line at mixed metaphor, which he terms nykrat “made monstrous” (Snorri Sturluson: Háttatal 6), and his nephew called the practice löstr “a fault” (Óláfr hvítaskáld: Third Grammatical Treatise 80).[19] In spite of this, it seems that “many poets did not object to and some must have preferred baroque juxtapositions of unlike kennings and neutral or incongruous verbs in their verses” (Foote & Wilson (1970), p. 332). E.g. heyr jarl Kvasis dreyra “listen, earl, to Kvasir’s blood (=poetry)” (Einarr skálaglamm: Vellekla 1).

Sometimes there is a kind of redundancy whereby the referent of the whole kenning, or a kenning for it, is embedded: barmi dólg-svölu “brother of hostility-swallow” = “brother of raven” = “raven” (Oddr breiðfirðingr: Illugadrápa 1); blik-meiðendr bauga láðs “gleam-harmers of the land of rings” = “harmers of gleam of arm” = “harmers of ring” = “leaders, nobles, men of social standing (conceived of as generously destroying gold, i.e. giving it away freely)” (Anon.: Líknarbraut 42).

While some Old Norse kennings are relatively transparent, many depend on a knowledge of specific myths or legends. Thus the sky might be called naturalistically él-ker “squall-vat” (Markús Skeggjason: Eiríksdrápa 3) or described in mythical terms as Ymis haus “Ymir’s skull” (Arnórr jarlaskáld: Magnúsdrápa 19), referring to the idea that the sky was made out of the skull of the primeval giant Ymir. Still others name mythical entities according to certain conventions without reference to a specific story: rimmu Yggr “Odin of battle” = “warrior” (Arnórr jarlaskáld: Magnúsdrápa 5).

"Ullr of war-leek! We carried the seed of Fýrisvellir on the mountains of hawks during all of Hakon's life; now the enemy of the people has hidden the flour of Fróði's hapless slaves in the flesh of the mother of the enemy of the giantess."

This might be paraphrased: "O warrior, we carried gold on our arms during all of Hakon's life; now the enemy of the people has hidden gold in the earth."

ímun-laukr "war-leek" = "sword".

Ullr is the name of a god, Ullr. Ullr [...] ímunlauks "god of sword" = "warrior", perhaps addressing King Harald. This kenning follows a convention whereby the name of any god is combined with some male attribute (e.g. war or weaponry) to produce a kenning for "man".

HAUKA FJÖLL "mountains of hawks" are "arms", a reference to the sport of falconry. This follows a convention in which arms are called the land (or any sort of surface) of the hawk.

Fýrisvalla fræ "seed of Fýrisvellir" = "gold". This is an allusion to a legend retold in Skáldskaparmál and Hrólf Kraki's saga in which King Hrolf and his men scattered gold on the plains (vellir) of the river Fýri south of Gamla Uppsala to delay their pusuers.

Fróða fáglýjaðra þýja meldr "flour of Fróði's hapless slaves" alludes to the Grottasöng legend and is another kenning for "gold".

móður hold mellu dolgs "flesh of mother of enemy of giantess" is the Earth (Jörd), personified as a goddess who was the mother of Thor, the enemy of the Jotuns.