ᛉ Sagnamaðr Stark ᛉ

Cygnus closely resembles the Anglo Saxon Ēar rune, called Zio in the “Marcomannic” runes; Tyr’s name in Old High German. “Tiw is a guiding star; well does it keep faith with princes; it is ever on its course over the mists of night and never fails.” ~Anglo Saxon Rune Poem ᛠ “Tir biþ tacna sum, healdeð trywa wel wiþ æþe…

A bronze Viking Age trefoil brooch, found in Pskov, Russia, 9-10th Century. These brooches were initially based on Carolingian sword belt distributors, which were taken as war trophies by the Vikings, and made into brooches for their wives. 𐘾

In Ahmad ibn Rustah’s account of the Rus, when a boy was born, his father laid a sword at his feet and said “I leave you no inheritance but what you can win with this.” We know inheritance was very important in Germanic cultures; I suspect the meaning was, what you are willing to defend with this. ᛟ

“Let us, I say, do our duty while we still remember what freedom is, that we may leave to our children not only its appellation but also its reality. For, if we utterly forget the happy state in which we were born and bred, what, pray, will they do, reared in bondage?” “Indeed, we enjoy such a surplus of bravery, that …

In Cassius Dio’s History, Boudicca uses a hare for divination, and “since it ran on what they considered the auspicious side”, this was seen as a sign from the Goddess Andraste. Centuries later, Grimm noted that in Germany and Scandinavia, a belief persisted that wolf crossing your path was auspicious; but a hare cross…