Rune Magic Visionary Novel by Michael Conneely and worldwide Runes Course

Rune Magic visionary novel by Michael Conneely is available on Amazon

Michael Conneely’s novel Rune Magic is available worldwide on Amazon, and he also teaches a worldwide Runes Course where you can learn the energy and meaning of each Rune, learn Rune chant (or Galdr) and Rune Stance and learn use of the Runes for divination.

The Runes are the alphabet of the ancient Norse, and each Rune is a key to deep meaning and transformation of a special area of your life. On his father’s side, Michael originates from Yakut Tribesmen who lived on the coast of the Barents Sea, but who had emigrated to the Baltic Coast ‘Danzig Corridor’ by his father’s time: the area of the Runes.

Michael studied Old Norse language and Literature at Oxford University where he was taught by JRR Tolkien’s son.
The book is a treasure trove of Norse Cosmology and quotes from the Sagas. It centres on two young people whom Odin, magnificent warrior god of the Ancient Norse took up from their own time, because he had a secret plan for them to avert the prophesied destruction of the Norse Gods at Ragnarok.

Declan and Magda took shelter at the house of the family of a Gothi, or Norse Ritual Priest when they first arrived, taken by Odin from their own time as the Fimbul Winter gripped the earth and the time for the final battle between the forces or Chaos and the Aesir Gods approached.

In this passage, Declan reads from the Voluspa Saga:

‘Eastward in Jarnvid, the Ironwood, an old troll crone sits: loathsome Angrboda
And there fed Fenrir’s evil brood:
One from all of these will one day swallow the sun.
He feeds on the flesh of doomed men.
Sunlight in summer shall be black thereafter.
Then comes the icy Fimbulvetr, the last Great Winter, when the sun becomes black.
Snow shall drive from all quarters. Frosts shall be great then, and winds sharp; There shall be no virtue in the sun. Those winters shall proceed three in succession and no summer between.

’Would you know yet more? And what?

‘In that time brother shall kill brother for greed’s sake, and none shall spare father or son.
Brother will fight brother and slay each other.

Sisters’ sons will violate their sacred blood-bond, and betray their kin;
Hard it is on earth, great whoredom, axe-age, sword-age, shields are cloven.
Wind-age, wolf-age, until the world perishes. No man will then spare another.

‘Would you know yet more? And what?

‘And Fjalar, the bright red cock, crows to awaken giants and summon them to the final war against the Aesir gods

‘Then the Gjallarhorn shall sound!

‘Heimdall shall waken War-Father Odin’s warriors in high Valhalla.
Heroically, nobly, fearless, the prophecy-doomed gods shall bravely sally forth.
The Einherjar, hero-dead in the Hall of the Slain prepare for hopeless fight.
For the courage of the Hero is absolute resistance.
Perfect because it is without hope and is also utterly doomed.

‘Would you know yet more? And what?

‘The Gjallarhorn sounds loud again.
Loud shall blow Heimdall, watchman of the gods,
Guardian of the Rainbow Bridge to Asgard, raising his horn aloft.
Then ancient, towering Yggdrasil shall tremble.
The ancient Ash groans as the giants break loose -’

At this point, Frithgeir, although thirteen and striving bravely to hold back his grief, joined the youngest brothers Bragi, Ari, and Einar who had been weeping more and more as the Seeress uttered her relentless and utterly dreadful, dreadful prophecy. Its certain truth was made all the more real by the dreadful winter outside. And as Frithgeir howled inconsolably, the Ravens, too, suddenly screamed hideously and whirled down from their beam at Brosni. Brosni sprang aside to duck their ravening claws and slashing beaks and fell into Declan. And as Brosni fell, he dashed the priceless Rune Tablets to the floor, where they shattered utterly.

Everyone in the room looked horror-struck at the fragments lying on the floor/

‘You f- idiot!’ Declan cried at Brosni, ‘look what you’ve done. You’ve destroyed the tablets.’
‘It wasn’t my fault, Declan,’ Brosni cried outraged. He swung round and thumped him. ‘The Ravens did it.’
‘Oh yeaah,’ raved Declan bitterly, picking up one of the larger fragments, all of which ceased immediately and utterly and irrevocably to give off their blue glow. ‘Now we’ll never know how the worlds are going to end – or if there is a way to save them. Do you see what you’ve done Brosni. I would not have thought even you could be so f- clumsy!’
Brosni made to hit Declan again, but his father gripped his fist.
‘We might have been able to do to change the outcome if only we’d known the full details of the prophecy!’ Declan shouted. ‘Just look what you’ve done.’
Declan pointed at the fragments. They no longer gave their meaning. All Declan could see was untranslatable Norse. ‘Look! This is the biggest fragment and look at this, you clumsy fool,’ shouted Declan. ‘Who could read this?
Declan and Brosni grappled with each other so great was their anger. The Ravens ducked and dived around them screaming triumphantly as Brosni leaped for Declan’s throat and dragged him to the floor.
‘Say it was not my fault, Declan,’ Brosni insisted through clenched teeth, wrenching free of his father, his hands grappling for Declan’s throat.
Asmundr calmly threw open the door to let the Ravens out, then he waded over to Declan and Brosni, striding through the crying smaller boys, and picked each up by their collars. ‘Brother will fight brother and slay each other,’ quoted the Gothi, implacably. ‘Stop it you two and make friends again. Don’t you see the High One has decided there is something about the Prophecy of the end of all the worlds that you are not to know? Not at this time.’
He stared the two boys in the eye.
‘You must pray to Him if you wish Him to bless you quest, Declan. You must not attack your friend.’
‘I’m sorry, Brosni,’ Declan said to Brosni, at last. ‘It wasn’t your fault. I shouldn’t have said it.’
‘I’m sorry too, Declan,’ Brosni muttered, ruefully rubbing his very red ear where Declan had thumped him.
‘You’re right, sir,’ Declan said, turning to Asmundr. ‘Whenever I have tried to find out the exact detail of the end of the worlds, something has stopped me. Now I see it. This has been going on for nine months now, ever since I started my quest. Someone is trying to stop me knowing something. It’s as if there’s one particular detail, at least, that I’m not supposed to know. I don’t think I was meant to read the end of the rune-prophecy,’ Declan said, forlornly, looking at the priceless ruin of the once-beautiful smashed tablets.
‘Well, I suppose that’s it,’ Declan said, dully, ‘Magda and I had better pack, we’ll be off tomorrow-,’ then Declan started crying. Little Ari suddenly seemed to go into a fit and Lilja rushed tiredly yet again to hold him tightly and wrap him in his blanket until the fit passed. The family sat numbed.

‘I’m coming with you!’ Brosni suddenly said. He startled them all by saying what had obviously been eating out his heart ever since they’d come. Declan gaped. Magda looked at Brosni thoughtfully. ‘I’m coming with you!’
‘But you can’t come with us, Brosni,’ Declan said gently at last.
Declan looked as if he could hardly bring himself to voice the cruel words he felt he now had to utter, but after struggling he mastered himself, he looked Brosni in the eye and said very softly: ‘Brosni, if the worlds are going to end soon, quite simply, just this: would you not want to be with your family at that time?’ Declan stood there looking Brosni in the eye.
‘Brosni, you’re arranged to marry Grimhildr within the month,’ Lilja told him distractedly. ‘You can’t go.’
‘I will not marry Grimhildr,’ Brosni told his mother flatly.
‘Perhaps if you kiss her she will turn into a beautiful maiden?’ Frithgeir asked mischievously.
Brosni snapped and lashed out at his brother and clipped Frithgeir hard on his ear, but was again restrained by Asmundr.
‘I am going with Declan and Magda,’ Brosni said. ‘And that’s the end of it. Maybe the Nine Worlds can be saved. The High One seems to have a plan which involves these two. And I am going to help them. They’ll be safer with me to help them.’
Declan looked rather doubtful at that but politely said nothing.
But at that same moment, Magda said very quietly, ‘you can come with us, Brosni,’
Declan gaped. He looked at Magda questioningly.
Asmundr stood up, and everyone else fell silent. ‘Brosni,’ he said. ‘You have a duty of Frith to your family. Especially at these times. You cannot go. You are staying with us.’
‘Father, I ask you to release me from my duty of Frith in these terrible circumstances,’ Brosni went down on one knee. ‘I ask you this in the hope that one day the family will be together again – if the three of us can just succeed in the desperate work the High One wishes.’ Brosni asked this humbly, kneeling down before his father.
‘Sir,’ said Magda, also now kneeling before Asmundr, ‘would you honour me by explaining what the duty of Frith is and how it prevents Brosni from following his ardent desire to come with us on the final mission of the High One?’
‘Frith means peace, Magda,’ Asmundr explained, gently but with finality. ‘Every man has an obligation to support the Frith of others. Every man should act in a way that supports the welfare of others. In everything you do, you must consider how it supports or hurts Frith. You must consider every action. And your heaviest obligation of Frith is to your blood kin.
‘Each man owes the greatest obligation of Frith to his own family: to his blood kin. After that, every man owes Frith, though to a lesser degree, to his relations: to his cousins, to his relatives by marriage and so forth. Next, to a lesser, but still to a very important degree, a man owes Frith, also, to his Tribe.
‘But the debt to blood kin comes first,’ Asmundr said heavily. ‘The debt to blood kin comes first, if any man acts in a way that harms the Frith of those to whom he owes Frith, his blood family in particular, then he gathers bad Orlog. The Orlog are the rules that govern the balance of the worlds. Break the Orlog and what is left? The fabric of the worlds is torn. Evil and chaos shall prevail. Bad Frith gathers bad Orlog. And if you gather bad Orlog, you will most certainly pass it on to your descendants as a bad Fate. Your children will be cursed.
‘The Orlog is the law,’ Asmundr continued. ‘It is Primal Law. It is chanted daily by the Nornir. It applies to all the nine worlds and it applies even to the gods. It also applies to each man. The more you start to alter your Orlog for the worse, the worse you make your Wyrd. Wyrd is the special Fate which is decreed for you by the Nornir for this life. Your Wyrd is your direction. Bad Wyrd is very hard to alter. And you can pass it on to your children. It is certainly partly inherited: inherited from parents and grandparents and even from the Tribe itself. And you can pass it on to the following generations. Create bad Frith and it is the slippery slope for all your family.
‘This is why Brosni cannot go with you – must not go with you. It is because Brosni has a debt of Frith to us, his family, to his blood kin. Brosni cannot go with you. He must stay by the side of his parents, his brothers and his sister, especially at such wicked times as are come upon us now. For Brosni to leave his family and go with those with whom he has no ties would be dishonourable and bad Frith and would seriously harm his Orlog. It would be wrong according to the Primal Law!’
Brosni looked confused, wilted and dismayed, but Declan sprung forward. Declan picked up his knife and made a cut right across the palm of his hand so that the blood bubbled right along its length and ran bright red, dripping on the straw. ‘Brosni, I ask you to become my blood brother,’ Declan cried.

Everyone in the hut started. ‘Be my blood brother, then your debt of Frith will be to me as blood kin and your Orlog will strengthen if you support me: me, a family member, on the final quest of the High One, blessed by the sacrifice of your own father as Gothi and started upon at this darkest time in the history of the nine worlds.’
Asmundr looked confused, but Brosni, too, seized the knife and slashed his own palm and the two pressed their palms together. Their blood mixed and they swore blood brotherhood until death, and then they embraced.

‘But, Brosni, what about your marriage?’ Lilja cried, holding her hand anxiously to her breast. ‘The contract is sworn. The dowry is settled. Your marriage is next month to Grimhildr-,’
‘F- Grimhildr,’ said both the boys at once.
‘I bet the f- cows are dead, anyway, by now: dead from the Fimbul Winter,’ Frithgeir observed, referring to Grimhildr’s dowry. Then he cracked out laughing and Brosni and Declan joined him.

‘And, anyway, I’m coming with you, too, Frithgeir cried suddenly. Then Frithgeir, too, although aged just thirteen years, seized the knife and scored a cut right across his palm also. ‘Be my blood brother, too, Declan!’ he cried, his eyes filling with tears at the emotion he felt, his whole body shaking. ‘I shall also serve the High one.’
Declan looked at Frithgeir with deep love. ‘I am honoured to swear blood brotherhood with you until death, Frithgeir,’ Declan replied. Much moved, he crossed the hut and he joined his own palm to Frithgeir’s and their blood mingled. They swore the ancient oath.
Then Brosni went to bravely face his father. ‘Father, I ask that you bless me and consent to my going on this quest with my brother and my blood brother to serve the High One at this darkest hour.’
Asmundr eyed him rather nervously, Declan felt.
‘Father, I ask to part with your blessing,’ Brosni repeated. ‘I love you father.’ Brosni said.
Asmundr regarded him mutely.
‘And I do not want to leave with this wall between us,’ Brosni pleaded.
‘It was not I who built the wall, Brosni,’ Asmundr whispered.
Sunna put her hands anxiously to her mouth and started crying.
‘No, father it was I. I built it.’ Brosni said, ‘but I felt I had to build it because you expected so much of me. You wanted things for me that I do not want,’ Father.
Lilja started crying.
‘I have tried to chip away at that wall, father, I have,’ Brosni told him, ‘but I have also felt like giving up trying because you did not seem to notice….’
Asmundr nodded, but he seemed so upset he couldn’t say anything.