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Iceland, 1655. The reverend Jón Magnússon is convinced that he's bewitched.

The devil haunts him whenever he tries to carry out his priestly functions. His livestock have fallen ill. One of his servants is struck dumb.

Obviously, someone has hexed him.

His suspicions fix on two of his parishioners, a man and his son, both named Jón Jónsson. (The vast majority of Icelanders accused of, and executed for, witchcraft were men.) He denounces the two to the sheriff and they are brought before the local court on charges of witchcraft.

A search of their home turns up galder-books and galder-staves. Galder—sung magic—has long been a primary form of magic in the North. (The word derives from galan, “sing, chant,” as in nightingale, “singer by night,” and gale, the “singing" storm.) One gales (chants) the spell and rists (engraves) it on a stave to “set” it.

On this evidence, both father and son are condemned. Both are burned alive.

But the burnings do not end the haunting.

What's "punk religion" and does Paganism fit the label? Can gods be "slackers?" And do the dead ever really leave us, even after millions of years? It's Watery Wednesday, our weekly segment on news about the Pagan community from around the globe! All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!

Some years back a friend and I drove out to see the famous runestone in Kensington, Minnesota.

Purportedly discovered by a farmer clearing a field in 1898, the runestone's inscription records the supposed visit of 14^th century “vikings” to what is now Minnesota. Experts have mostly written it off as a hoax.

I think that the experts are probably right. My initial impression when I saw the runestone was that it doesn't look like a runestone; it looks like a page from a book. Historic runic inscriptions tend to be serpentine, curvilinear, not neatly arranged on the page in lines of equal length.

But I still think that the Kensington Runestone is genuine.

Let me explain.

We can be virtually certain that the Hwicce, the Anglo-Saxon tribe said (by some) to have given its name and lore to historic witchcraft, knew and used the runes.

They, of course, would have named them in the Mercian dialect of Old English, the language that they spoke every day. It is worth asking what those names might have become had the runes remained in continuous use into our day.

Certainly they would have modernized along with the rest of the language; many of the Anglo-Saxon rune-names have remained part of the living language and are entirely recognizable today. We would expect the names to have retained a certain amount of archaic vocabulary, and also to reflect a certain degree of semantic and phonetic “drift” as well: i.e. to include words whose meanings have changed over the centuries, and whose pronunciations no longer reflect those of Old English.

Since some of my family come from the old Hwiccan tribal territories, I figure I have as much right to the runes as anybody. My entirely personal decision to base this version on the Elder, rather than the Anglo-Saxon, furthorc may offend some rune purists. Oh, well. In my experience (I wrestle with it myself), purism is usually its own punishment.

I had mentioned in my last blog post that would be pulling one rune a week to learn more about them.  My first rune was Perthro, Peorth.  A rune of mystery and change.  Which was the perfect rune to begin with, I was starting out learning and studying the mysteries of these runes.  It was a beginning for me, a beginning full of mystery. 

I’ve been spending a lot of alone time lately since my work has decided to send me to training an hour and a half away from home.  I’m staying there through the week to save on the travel time and gas money.  Lacking the responsibility of housework and kids, I felt myself starting to bounce off the walls a bit.  The small apartment that I am staying in doesn’t have a TV, nor a radio.  Sure, I can listen to Pandora on my phone, as well as search YouTube for songs and videos.  Then there is my laptop.  I can stream and search using the wifi that is connected to my work’s system.  But, I needed to be careful as they review sites that people go on.  That limits my searching and researching ability.

They speak to me at times, the ones behind the veil.  I can hear them and sense them, but I cannot always see them.  Other times I can see them, but cannot hear what they are saying. Its frustrating to have this happen, so see things that you cannot explain to people around you.  It's even harder to know that there is something that they are trying to tell me but I cannot make sense of it.

At one time it was easier, before kids, before the business of life.  Now the tide is changing and life is slowing a bit - at least for me in some ways - and they are coming back, talking.