Othala

Othala is the Rune of the tribe and the homeland.

Before starting to analyze this stanza, I want to take a quick look at the first word, Eþel. The Old English dictionary translates it as: “property, inheritance, country, realm, land, dwelling, home. This provides a much broader base to work with.

So Othala is the Rune of the homeland and in this context is important to remember that the Germanic tribes that created the Runic system in antiquity were a tribal society. In such a society, there is no international law, no standing army and no police force. The only thing standing between you and chaos and bodily harm is the tribe and its customs. The tribe physically protects you and the customs regulate the behavior of its members in regards to everything from conflicts to marriage. This doesn’t mean that everyone who doesn’t belong to your tribe is seen as being inherently evil but they are potentially dangerous and you will not understand all their behavior as you do not know all of their customs. This mentality is not unique to Germanic tribes but is universal.

Customs are solutions to problems that worked in the past, the time of the Ancestors, and were therefore preserved. This also explains why Ancestor worship is an essential part of the spirituality of almost all tribal cultures that have been observed over the course of recorded history. This Ancestor worship is not just tied to the individuals that lived in the past but also to the place where they lived, their native homeland.

Othala can be used to create a feeling of safety and restore order in times of chaos. It is of great help if we want to search for our roots in an ancestral or cultural sense as well as in order to find the roots of certain unwanted behavioral programs or personality traits. When meditating and pushing towards the deeper, hidden and sometimes frightening aspects of ourselves, Othala can serve as a home-base, a safe haven where we always can return to if the going gets to rough.