There are many ways of looking at this bind-rune but primarily it can be used to understand the six annual festivals and it describes a "Sun Wheel" .
Starting at the top branch of the central Hagl rune (i.e. as if at mid-night if the bind-rune were a clock) we find the runes Fe and Ar. This marks the festival of Yule (the forerunner of Christmas).
Working clockwise around the Hagl we next find Bjørk and Þórr. This marks the festival known as the Winter-thing or Disir-thing. "Thing" simply means a meeting or council. The Winter-thing was the main winter meeting. "Disir" literally means "women" thus this festival was also the main annual women's meeting. Smaller meetings were held on a monthly basis and it has been suggested that originally these would have followed the lunar rather than solar calendar (thus there would be 13 meetings per year rather than 12) and perhaps this was a time when women withdrew from the menfolk while menstruating - although most of this is simply hypothesis.
Moving round the bind-rune we next find the runes Laug and Mann. This marks the festival of Summer-day. The Old Norse saw this as marking the start of summer, but it should be remembered that the Norse divided the year into only two seasons, Winter and Summer, and thus Summer-day has many of the functions of English spring festivals such as May-day.
Next (i.e. in a straight line below Fe and Ar) we find the runes Sól and Ur. This marks the festival of Baldr's Wake or Midsummer. At this point the sun has reached it's highest point and the days begin to shorten as the world moves from light towards darkness. It should be apparent that Mid-Summer and Mid-Day share the common feature of being the highest points of the sun each year or day, just as Mid-Winter and Mid-Night are the darkest periods. "Baldr's Wake" derives it's name from the celebration of the death and funeral of Baldr, the son of Óðínn and Frigg, who is linked to the sun.
Moving around the x Hagl again we next come to Ås and Týr. This marks the festival of the Summer-Thing. Like it's counterpart the Winter-Thing, the Summer-Thing is the season's largest festival. The Summer-Thing is generally considered more of a men's festival and in modern Stáv has turned into the main gathering for the year, held in early August in Beverley, Yorkshire, England.
Moving on again we come to the next festival, Winter-Day. Here we find the runes Kreft and Rei. This festival traditionally marked the start of winter but has much in common with English autumnal festivals, most notably Halloween. This was a time of sacrifice, the wild hunt and the return of ancestral spirits.
This takes us back to Yule, another time of the return of the ancestors, although generally with more positive connotations.
A few points are worth mentioning. The upper half of the bindrune relates to winter and the bottom to summer.
In the upper half but not placed upon the Hagl we find the winter runes Yr and Is . In the summer half we find the runes Hagl and Nød . Hagl and Yr are always diagonally opposite each other, as are Is and Nød, but otherwise it is unimportant whether these runes are placed left or right.
It should be apparent that with two seasons, the year is divided into darkness and light. However, the year is taken as beginning at Yule and reaching ‘half way' at Mid-summer. This means that rather than having a horizontal divide of the year into darkness and light, we instead have a progression from the darkest point to the lightest, then from the lightest to the darkest. The same can be said of the modern day which begins at midnight. However, the Old Norse day began at six p.m. on what we would consider the previous day - thus "Monday" started at 6pm on Sunday and ended at 6pm on Monday evening, the start of Tuesday! It is also quite possible, perhaps even probable, that at some point in the distant past the New Year was considered to begin on Winter Day - however if this was the case it was a very long time ago.
This is primarily for the martial side of the system and as such is also the "Herse" bind-rune, although the ethical lessons are valuable for everyone. Starting at the top of the bind-rune we find Q Þórr.
This rune stands in this instance for "Protection".
Next we have ª Mann. Here, this rune stands for the "Self".
Now we find the rune B Bjørk and here the rune means "Kindred" which is literally one's family but may also include close friends or others with whom there is a bond.
Next we find T Týr. Here the rune stands for 'Belief' or other words with a similar meaning such as ideal, ideology, value, country etc. Týr can stand for anything one has faith in, trusts or values whether it be a nation, political system, religion or so on.
Now we come to u Ur which in this instance means 'Life' or life-force, essence etc.
Finally we come to R Rei which basically means 'Death' or in extreme cases, extinction.
At this point it would be inadvisable to 'tell you what all this means' - that is for you to decide - but basically the bind-rune is designed as an ethical code to teach someone when to fight. It is important to realise that this code is something of a two-edged sword; on the one hand it teaches the occasions when it is 'permissible' to fight and on the other hand it teaches the occasions when it is 'expected' that one would fight - which are generally taken to be one and the same. With this in mind it should be seen that the prime reason for fighting is 'Protection' (Þór). That one may and should protect oneself (Mann). That one may and should protect one's kindred (Bjørk). That one may and should protect one's beliefs (Týr) - although naturally this starts leading toward dodgy ground if taken to the extreme - for example fighting to protect one's ancestral land from invasion or the sanctity of a temple from violation would be considered perfectly reasonable by the standards of this rune, however it is only a short step (or should that be backward somersault?) from this to finding an excuse to invade Poland or set up the Spanish inquisition. Next we come to the Ur rune. This basically means that by fighting - at the appropriate time - one gives life to oneself, one's family and one's belief. 'Gives life to' can be taken several ways; obviously this can mean 'carries on living' (if the protection is successful) but beyond this the thing that is being protected may continue to have 'life' even if the subject dies in 'combat' - think in terms of such intangibles as 'honour', 'martyrdom' and so on. Fighting and dying may ensure the continued survival of the 'essence' of what one wishes to protect even if it physically dies, while 'giving up' may mean a physical continuation of existence but a loss of the essence. Finally we come to Rei. Rei represents a rather different mental state of affairs. In this instance Rei stands for death, and it is possible to draw the conclusion that in protecting the 'life' of one thing, we cause the 'death' of that which opposes us. While this may be a fair point of view, in this instance Rei has different connotations. The general thrust of the ethical bindrune is that the only truly honourable reason for fighting (and by fighting we must accept that we are talking about killing another human being or beings not just philosophical abstractions) is for the purpose of protection. The Rei rune somewhat alters this perception as it refers to occasions when your actions may actually seem to make things 'worse' but still you must fight. The example my teacher has often given was the actions of the Norwegian resistance during W.W.II (something that members of his family were very heavily involved with). In this instance the Nazis had a policy of virtual genocide in any region which opposed them. In this situation, personal resistance was likely to lead to the death of oneself, one's family and one's ideals e.g. the annihilation of one's region and way of life. Clearly this is on a rather different scale from, and of a different nature to, a fight in a pub. Despite this the Norwegians (including members of the Hafskjold family) still did not feel that they could avoid resistance, even if it meant the total extinction of their country. There is a difference between fighting with the hope of winning and fighting even if you believe that ‘victory' may be impossible and death virtually a certainty. This is basically what is meant by the Rei rune in this instance - the acceptance of death and all out war no matter what the cost. Needless to say this is not a usual combat situation and certainly not something to be entered into lightly. It may seem a little paradoxical, but in fact Rei and Ur are just flip-sides of each other, or different perspectives on the same state, although this could perhaps be said of all the aspects of this bindrune.
A brief introduction :
Q Mött and u Megin are equivalent to the English saying 'might and mane'. These refer to 'force' or 'power' both in the sense of physical strength and of the strength of intrinsic energy.
ź Ljósgalder is 'light' galder or in other words the use of the runes, in this case for healing, in an 'open', up-front way such as rune-counselling.
» Myrkgalder is 'shadow' galder, the use of runes in secret e.g. carving healing runes and placing them beneath a patient's bed. Please note that while concepts such as 'light' and 'dark' galder may be the origin of modern concepts such as 'white' and 'black' magic, they in fact have nothing whatever to do with the purpose or intent of the 'spell' and refer only to that which is open and that which is not.
B Teinseid refers to 'herbal' Seiðr or simply herbalism, although the origins of this art are firmly in magic rather than science.
ª Lokkseid refers to the use of trance inducing chants to reach a diagnosis or cure. It should become apparent that although there are many ways of looking at this bindrune, one perspective (and a good one) is to see the bindrune as divided into the three classes, each having a pair of runes. These runes can then be seen to represent the exoteric and esoteric aspects of the type of healing practised by each level.