Traditional meaning: need
Meanings when upright:
Meanings when inverted:
Nauthiz can be useful for:
Anglo-Saxon rune poem:
Nyd byþ nearu on breostan; weorþeþ hi þeah oft niþa bearnum
to helpe and to hæle gehwæþre, gif hi his hlystaþ æror.
Trouble is oppressive to the heart;
yet often it proves a source of help and salvation
to the children of men, to everyone who heeds it betimes.
Norwegian rune poem:
Nauðr gerer næppa koste;
nøktan kælr í froste.
Constraint gives scant choice;
a naked man is chilled by the frost.
A modern poem:
What was once a tiny candle
now burns brighter
than the flames of hell.The blood boils in my veins,
an altar to nobody set ablaze.
I'm straining my neck to peer up high
at the furious one who gave me life.Or, rather, took it away
several times, each molded into a different shape,
and assumes just because she designed the mold
means she forever has the right to me control.Ironically, deep down in the dirt
of the lowest roots of Yewiffe
is so painfully bright
that I feel I could go blind
at any moment, limbs in agreement
that to even move a twitch is to hurt.
How nice it would be to lie down and sleep...Legs stumble, steady arm
around my shoulders
keeping me upright.
"We've come so far,
Lethe. Just one more time
I have to ask you to bloody
your hands, whatever, claws,
and fight."Your hand finds mine.
I don't want to die,
I think. I don't want to write
you off as a lost cause
like you once did yourself,
you, yourself, me,
turned your back in abandoning
that winter cave not too long ago.
My hand in yours, counting heartbeats
as you threw yourself into dreamless sleep.
Hopeless you thought you, yourself.
Until one day came a change of heart:
"Lethe, I can't do this alone.
The living, I mean.
Please help me."So many shattered souls for which I must atone.
My weight on your shoulders,
mountain rising
to meet the blurry all-sun sky.
Palm pals, sunny future
with our fingers intertwined,
the tree branches of Yewiffe hopelessly reaching high."The present feeds off the corpse of the past
when from the hope of a future it is shorn.
I have come to end the cycle of puppets.
I have come to make myself reborn."