'Alu': A Mystery Runic Word

[Twisted_Logic]

I'm gonna start wearing a pendant that just says "beer"

[Woedans]

In a society heavily reliant on health (staying fit and healthy) and spiritual/religious things, I think ALU meant something down the lines of what we today say when somebody is sneezing or coughing: bless you / health to you.

[tamerofhorses]

Ealuscerwen might have meant soberness. It makes perfect sense in the context as before Grendel's arrival the men were busy with merrymaking, however with the press of the monster they were "sobered", in a sense, deprived of the ale.

[krikeles]

When I saw the topic, I thought: "I've heard of Alu repetitive elements before". Then I realized that I was thinking of the short repetitive stretches of DNA scattered through our genome. Not the same thing. Unless a time-travelling biochemist was trying to signal that she was stuck in the old Norse era and needed to be extracted.

[zosthegoatherd]

The first thing I thought at the beginning of the video was "If it was Lithuanian I would say it meant beer..." not that the languages are that close, but it does speak to a common Indo-European word.

[Saraqual]

My family name happens to be Alhaug. The Alhaug farm is pronounced in its local dialect as "Alu"
I’ve been told it shares etymological roots with "Adel" as something that is high/noble.
Though this is something I was told by my grandfather, it would seem to make more sense than it coming from beer

[ssznajder]

Did the norse have the concept of initialism or acronym? I wonder if Alu could be one of those.

[patrickrobinson]

In Sigrdrífumál it talks about ale-runes protecting the a person from evil, presumably poison.

[agenthearts]

Thank you for this excellent video. I think my favorite mysteries are the ones that leave me with more fascinating questions than actual answers.

[anon]

Perhaps bracteates were given to young warriors after being initiated into the warrior cult. Ale might have played a magical role during such ceremonies, such as swearing oaths and stuff. The word might have served as a reminder of these things.

[campbell]

In Scottish Gaelic, the color yellow means good luck. So maybe this "alu" means good luck. It's reddish, like gold. If you aspirate it, you get something like "hale" or "whole, " in the sense of whole, complete. Holy. That's my guess.

[Son-of-Tyr]

Also, bought two of Jackson's books recently and they're great.

[Thrym]

According to Finn Rasmussen, "AL" in Old Germanic means to grow. The ending "-U" was used in the first person singular, or imperative. So, if you have a bracteate depicting a god, with the inscription ALU, it basically means "I bring growth/prosperity", or "let there be growth/prosperity".

[midshipman]

first thing that came to mind for a private word is an important emotion or quality or abstract. love, strength, bravery, happyness, grace, trust, etc.

[CapriUni]

Well, if the purpose of these letters was to get people to ask questions, it's still working quite well!

[ChristianBoeger-lm]

Acronym: the three words rhyme. Uruz, Laguz, Ansuz. Can just picture someone blessing another person, laying their hand on them and saying the three words. ALU could be shorthand for the three word rhyming blessing and also a word that encompasses the blessing and beliefs and meanings behind it.

[theanonymousmrgrape]

My first, admittedly probably incorrect thought was that it could be somehow derived from proto-Germanic hailaz, and related to ON heill.
The idea is that it would have been a shorthand for a longer phrase wishing good health on someone, perhaps the bearer or the reader.
It’d definitely be an awkward reading though, as it would have to be in the dative for that -u ending to make sense.

I decided to read through the wikipedia article and apparently there’s someone out there who’s connected the word to a standard devotional phrase from one of the alpine alphabets, quite fitting for Jackson’s recent videos.

[kellyearthrise]

You mentioned that "alu" also reminded you of branding, although you didn't take that seriously. Myself I was reminded of the Nike swoosh logo that is stamped everywhere on shoes, clothing, and accessories.

[murunbuchstanzangur]

Before watching this video, I always thought alu was a reference to the concept of fury, the drunkenness of battle, of poetry, the excitement that Odin is the god of. Fermentation was a sort of magic to the ancient people, let's not forget. Onions and garlic are used in a lot of herbal remedies. They could be considered to have some sort of magic healing power maybe.

[mrAMMW]

when seeing the stone from england my first thought is that it might be a version of "horray" or "hurah" hence written 3 times to indicate a victory that took place there