The Oera Linda Book, by Wiliam R. Sandbach, [1876], at sacred-texts.com
(See Plate I.)
What appears at the top is the signs of the Juul—that is, the first symbol of Wr-alda, also of the origin or beginning from which Time is derived; this is the Kroder, which must always go round with the Juul. According to this model Frya formed the set hand which she used to write her Tex. When Fasts was Eeremoeder she made a running hand out of it. The Witkoning—that is, the Sea-king Godfried the Old—made separate numbers for the set hand and for the runic hand. It is therefore not too much that we celebrate it once a year. We may be eternally thankful to Wr-alda that he allowed his spirit to exercise such an influence over our forefathers.
In her time Finda also invented a mode of writing,
Click to enlarge
Plate 2
but that was so high-flown and full of flourishes that her descendants have soon lost the meaning of it.
Afterwards they learned our writing—that is, the Finns, the Thyriers, and the Krekalanders—but they did not know that it was taken from the Juul, and must therefore always be written round like the sun. Furthermore, they wished that their writing should be illegible by other people, because they always had matters to conceal. In doing this they acted very unwisely, because their children could only with great difficulty read the writings of their predecessors, whereas our most ancient writings are as easy to read as those that were written yesterday.
Here is a specimen of the set hand and of the running hand, as well as of the figures, in both.
(See Plate II.)