Hlaut

Meaning of Old Norse word "hlaut"

As defined by the Cleasby & Vigfusson Old Norse to English dictionary:

hlaut

f. (not n.); the gender is borne out by the genitive tein hlautar, Vellekla; as also by the dat. hlautinni, Landn. (App.) 336, in an old transcript of the lost vellum Vatnshyrna (see Kjaln. S. Ísl. ii. 403, where hlautinn):—the blood of sacrifice, used for soothsaying; this word is prob. to be derived from hlutr (hlautr), as an abbreviated form, for hlaut-blóð = sanguis sortidicus, and refers to the rite, practised in the heathen age, of enquiring into the future by dipping bunches of chips or twigs into the blood, and shaking them; those twigs were called teinar, hlaut-teinar, hlaut-viðr, blót-spánn, q. v.; the act of shaking was called hrista teina, to shake twigs, Hým. 1; kjósa hlautvið, to choose lot chips, Vsp. In Vellekla the true reading is prob. hann (earl Hakon) valdi (from velja, MS. vildi) tein hlautar, meaning the same as kjósa hlautvið in Vsp., an emendation borne out by the words ‘felldi blótspán’ (Fagrsk. l. c.) in the prose text, which is a paraphrase of the verse; the explanation of the passage in Lex. Poët. is no doubt erroneouS. It was also called fella blótspán, see that word, p. 71. The walls of the temple inside and out, the altars, and the worshippers were sprinkled with the blood, the flesh of the slain cattle was to be eaten (whereas the blood was a sacrifice, as well as the means of augury, and was not to be eaten); this rite is described in Hkr. Hák. S. Góða ch. 16: en blóð þat allt er þar kom af (i. e. from the slain cattle) þá var þat kallat hlaut ok hlaut-bollar þat er blóð þat stóð í, ok hlaut-teinar, þat var svá gört sem stöklar (bunches); með því skyldi rjóða stallana öllu saman, ok svá veggi hofsins útan ok innan, ok svá stökkva á mennina; en slátr (the meat) skyldi hafa til mann-fagnaðar: the passages in Eb. ch. 4, p. 6 new Ed., in Kjaln. S. ch. 2, and in Landn. (App.), are derived from the same source as the passage in Hkr., but present a less correct and somewhat impaired text; even the text in Hkr. is not quite clear, esp. the phrase, þat var gört sem stökkull, which prob. means that the hlaut-teinar were bound up in a bunch and used for the sprinkling. The blood-sprinkling mentioned in Exod. xii. 22 illustrates the passage above cited; cp. hleyti, hljóta, and hlutr.

Possible runic inscription in Younger Futhark:ᚼᛚᛅᚢᛏ
Younger Futhark runes were used from 8th to 12th centuries in Scandinavia and their overseas settlements