by Brahn th’ Blessed
Early on in my craft studies, I was advised to study a runic alphabet for recording coven & grove secrets, like names of power and ritual chants. As I studied different runes (Futhark, Thelemic, and others), I became fascinated with phonetic alphabets and eventually developed my own phonetic alphabet, which over years of study and development, has become my Essynian Runic Script.
There are thirteen Essynian Runes from which there derive 52 various phonemes (word sounds). I attach a Paint image of the lower case runes to give some idea of them, but I will be using common American alphabet letters to represent the runes in this article, which is more about the knowledge I have gained regarding the underlying relationship of phonetic sounds in our language. And it is this underlying relationship of sounds that is most fascinating to me as an occultist and a wordsmith, a fascination I hope some of you will discover and utilize in your magick workings. Words have power, and that power is greatly enhanced by the knowledge of the relational web of sounds and how they are used most effectively.
- Any letter that is doubled or any group of letters that is underlined (consonants or vowels) is aspirated. (BB or B = ‘P’; ZZh or Zh = ‘Sh’; UUn or Un = ‘Wh’; Zdpn = ‘Str’.)
- Adding Voth (h) to consonants makes base consonants into fricative consonants;
adding it to vowels makes long vowels into short vowels. - Adding Nom (n) to consonants makes base consonants into closed consonants;
adding it to certain vowels makes them into semi-vowels.
Consonants give form and texture to a word. There are twenty consonant phonemes formed by the five derivatives of the four consonant runes. Note that these four consonant runes each have five derivative sounds that are perfectly symmetrical. Babyl (Fire) consonants are pronounced with the lips; Doth (Dog) consonants are pronounced with the tongue on the palate or the teeth. Zeva (Snake) consonants are pronounced with the tongue, often cupped allowing a passage of air, except for the closed ‘L’ sound. Gesh (Cave) is the deepest consonant sound, gutteral and throaty.
The seven vowel runes create thirteen basic vowel sounds; six have long and short derivatives while one, Roth, has only a long form. Vowels are the tonic heart of every word, sometimes open on both sides of the tone, sometimes enclosed by consonants on one or both sides. In addition to being long or short vowels, they are also aspirative or non-aspirative; an aspirative vowel is like a vowel that is preceded by an “H”, like air & hair, old & hold, or edge & hedge. The first four vowel runes have only these four derivative forms, but the last three vowels have those forms plus two semi-vowel forms each (“Y”, “W”, & “R”) that are vowels with strong consonant overtones. Here are the seven vowel rune derivatives.
You will note that these long and short vowels are not matched like the vowels of a dictionary. Instead, bread is the short form of braid, duck is the short form of dock, cat is the short form of kite, vault is the short form of volt, lick is the hort form of leak, pull is the short form of pool, and burn has no short form. Instead of a-e-i-o-u, there is ay-ah-ie-oe-ee-ue-er. There is a meditative chant in which the thirteen vowels are intoned in a continuum that flows readily from one vowel to another as follows:
I have found this intonation to be quite effective.
- The Essynian Runes are both, Phonetic and Syllabic.
- The first syllable receives primary stress if all other syllables are preceded by dots (.).
- If another syllable is stressed, it will be preceded by an asterisk (*).
- The four types of syllables are identified by the word, Avénomos.
Here are a few familiar names written in runic script.
Oberon Zell is written as W.bp.adn Zehzn.
Robert Heinlein is written as Rna.bpd Cdn.znihdn.
Marian Zimmer Bradley is written as Bnchp.y.ahdn Zih.bnp Bpnchd.zny
Kurt Vonnegut is written as Gpd Bhadn.y.gahd
Doreen Valiente is written as Dwp*ydn Bhchzn*ynehdn.de
Cerredwyn is written as Geh*pnehd.unihdn
Gerald Gardner is written as Ghehp.ahznd Gapd.dnp
In ‘reading’ a name, as you would read a tarot card or zodiac aspect, focus on these details:
- How many names, comprised of how many syllables?
- Which syllables have stress/emphasis, and which do not?
- What type is each syllable (Ah=Air, Vay=Fire, Nom=Earth, Os=Water)?
- What images do the syllables elicit? The Rna in Robert for example is the Egyptian sun god, Ra.
- Some images may be ‘once-removed’ as for example the .bpd in Robert, which is once-removed from bpd (bird), bapd (bard), bcd (bite), byd (bead), bypd (beard) bpdn (burn), & bpdh (birth, berth), etc.
- Use the images to derive an interpretation of the syllable in its context.
- Sephadwai-sen vinakras = 7254
- Onedagre-sen zerenuma kilja, krasazyne-sen nonzadwai = 1839.4602
- Zere-sen krasanonz = 340
- Dwaizere-kilja, Numa-sen agrevin = 23,0985
Ydn Guny.e.dabn Znw.ga Ba.ghe Zu.bnah!
In quiet places, peace is supreme. (In Quietam Loca, Pace Summa!)
The writer was born with moonlight in his heart and is dedicated to her service. He is a pantheistic neoPagan mystic, the coordinator of Crows Nest, the Global CAW Cybernest, and an editor of Green Egg Magazine–by which magazine he was first introduced into the neoPagan community in 1972. He is also an Elder of the Essynian Witchcraft Tradition that he founded in 2021, and he is also the Most High Swami-Pajami at the Nashville Temple of Eris Discordiana & Towing Service…If You Need a Tow, Come Rain or Come Snow, We’re on the Go, And We Won’t be Slow!