The Giant-Rune and His Wife
I’m tellin’ ya, with each passing week, there’s less and less news about giantesses, or at least news I haven’t already covered. People are getting excited about SAEKO, with good reason, as it flips the traditional interactive puzzle-solver on its head. There’s another round of tabloid pearl-clutching about “giantess” being a favored topic of porn in Europe. Maybe you’ll remember the album Big Woman by NZ band Giantess? Now you can get their T-shirt with a big woman baring her ass in a symbolic, almost classical Greek motif.
The rest of the “news” shared by Google Alerts for giantess and macrophilia is just cruft from Reddit, YouTube, DeviantArt, and random porn mirror/pirate sites. Hopefully something interesting will flare up in the near future, like, maybe some behind-the-scenes shots of Tim Burton’s 50-Foot Woman redux. Here’s hoping it’s any good.
As for me, I’ve been diving into a form of spirituality or philosophy centered on giantesses. This has taken me from Jungian therapy to creating my own Norse runes, including a (legal) drug-induced weekend in the woods to meditate on positive reaffirmations and to commune with the Muse.
One thing I was pleasantly surprised to discover is that one of the runes represents a giant. Did you know this? Thurisaz “ᚦ” actually represents lots of things. As an Icelandic and Old English letter it’s called “thorn” and is pronounced with a vocalized “th” sound, like in “these.” Its counterpart, “eth, Ð, ð (lowercase)” uses the aspirated “th” sound: “thigh.” I won’t get into the long story about how eth was responsible for later English speakers conflating “you” with “thou.”
When it comes up in a reading, Thurisaz can represent authority or a figure in power, either power you have to assume or to confront. It represents the thorn in your side that’s been irritating you for a long time and you need to get rid of, before you can continue down your path. It can denote good luck from an unexpected source, being in the right place at the right time. It’s governed by the planet Jupiter, bears the color red, and is equated with the Tarot card the Emperor. The old Norse word ᚦurs means “giant,” and if you think “thurs” sounds like a day of the week, you might have missed your calling as a linguist, as it’s also associated with the god Thor.
When crafting runes, you have to focus on the letter you’re carving and remind yourself what it means, to help imbue you with its significance. There are variations of a rune-making poem you can recite. The Icelandic runic verse for Thurisaz goes: “ᚦurs is illness of women and cliff-dweller and husband of Varthrun” or “Torturer of women and cliff-sweller and husband of a giantess.” Cliff-dweller is a kenning (a poetic two-word figure of speech) for giant.
Note: Don’t confuse Varthrun for Vafthruthnir, “mighty weaver,” a wise old jotunn. Varthrun, or Varðrún, is a giantess mentioned in the Nafnaᚦulur, a section at end of the Skáldskaparmál, the third part of Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda. Frustratingly, she is only listed as a giantess living among other giantesses or troll-wives. But feel free to follow the linguistic drift from Varthrun/Varthruna to Wardruna. In a 2008 interview with NekroTroll for Dark City Magazine (Russia), Einar Selvik (aka Kvitrafn, “white raven”) of the neo-folk band Wardruna explained that their name means “the guardian of secrets” or “she who whispers.” Given the dearth of information on her, one assumes she’s very good at her job.
The Norwegian version reads: “ᚦurs causes illness in women; few rejoice at ill luck” or “Giant causes anguish to women; misfortune makes few men cheerful.” These are variants in interpretation over the years, doubtless.
Lastly, the Anglo-Saxon version of this poem goes: “Thorn is exceeding sharp, a baneful thing for a warrior to touch, uncommonly severe on all who lie amongst them,” or “Thorns sharply slash, everybody knows that—snatching them savage, ferocious sting for anyone who plops down among them.” The latter translation comes from Dr. Ophelia Eryn Hostetter at Rutgers, and its tone aims to reflect the casual, gruff nature of the Vikings, perhaps, rather than the formal, austere, poetic styles seen in the other examples.
And because Thurisaz represents a large man, an alpha-male, or some other obnoxious fucking obstacle, this is also a rune of non-action. You call upon Thurisaz to strengthen your ability to endure, to wait, to pause and think and let events unfold before you make a rash decision. The people you’re dealing with may not be sincere, there might be a loophole in the business you’re working on. Thurisaz shows up in a drawing of runes to urge you to reflect, make sure you’re not being foolish or proud, and wait for an opportunity. Thickets of thorns were an easy barrier to set up against an enemy; plunging into them caused a lot of stupid, needless pain. But a few moments of study and a little wandering around could reveal the opportunity to surpass them.
To learn much more about the association between Thurisaz and giants, I strongly recommend you check out “Thurisaz: Rune of Generation” from the blog Amstel on the Dam. It’s thick with great research and interpretation, plus practical ways of bringing this mysticism into your own life, should you so choose.
And if you’re really hungry for some heavy meat, do check out Bruce Dickins’s Runic and Heroic Poems of the Old Teutonic Peoples, 1915. Listen to a calming recitation of Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda. If Varðrún turns up in your dreams, kindly let me know what she had to say for herself.
In Her Shadow,
Aborigen
©2024 Aborigen/Size Riot