Long have I been fascinated by the runes. Recently, my good friend Darcy Blahut and I decided to work together on a joint writing project. Darcy is an accomplished poet, so I invited him to write a poem inspired on each rune verse and my own reflection on that particular rune. I expect that this project will take a year or so, but wanted to share our first effort ... feoh. Enjoy!
Feoh: Cattle
Cattle are comfort for everyone.
Yet each of us must share our wealth freely,
if we wish to gain honour in the sight of the Creator.
This first rune of the futhorc gifts us with a snapshot of the Anglo-Saxon concept of wealth. In concord with so many other ancient cultures, the Anglo-Saxon economy was based on livestock, and in particular domestic cattle. Cattle could be eaten, milked, traded, herded, rustled. They were a source of meat, dairy, bone, horn, hide, and many other necessary products. But as the rune poem hints, cattle were also a source of comfort, and not just because they were a measure of wealth.
If you've ever had the good fortune to milk a gentle cow in the warmth of a sturdy barn while a snowstorm rages outside, you will know the comfort of feoh. It is a mistake to look at cattle as economic units, as if they simply “stand for” an abstract concept of monetary value. Our ancestors knew that their wealth depended on living beings. From milk to meat to marrow, wealth was embedded in relationships – relationships with the cattle and fields, and relationships with other human people.
Much more obvious in the rune poem is the conviction that wealth is not to be hoarded. The source of wealth is the Creator, and to “gain honour” from the Creator, wealth needs to be shared freely. For indigenous cultures, from the ancient Anglo-Saxon to the contemporary Cree or Metis, generosity is the true basis of the tribal economy. Wealth is meant to be shared.
What is your wealth right now, and what are you doing with it?
The bloodmonth is cold,
fingers rigid to the blade.
Though supple once your hand,
your neck crooked in an honest day’s labour,
locked firm against my frame. Ribs,
the strong pines of a proud house;
unshaken your name,
yet bent low to honour the birth of me.
Your knees, as mine, wet as when
I first let flesh to the warm fist,
both foot and hoof scratching at the ground
till knuckles got their bearing
and set rhythm to relief.
tin-tin tin-tin under the pail’s rim,
silvered by light through barn window,
Half-opened its retinal finding, our breath
visible on sweet-smelling cud.
Wealth is giving. This the first lesson.
And prescience—how we are fed by blessing.
But your fingers, I know, are not without strife.
And your table, your childrens’,
theirs as they grow, who
from inside I nourish and sustain.
It is I who become them, and in becoming honour.
So close this memory now, my reluctance
to move toward charity,
though thank now the hand over me
for having eased my path,
you who sung idylls at my side,
and led me, my twin young,
into meadowing.