Let's Get Weird in 2025

Settle in for a true story about being weird, weaving and women's history.

Firstly, Happy New Year! I hope you’re well and have had a restful break.

I’m partially still in the yes-these-are-my-daytime-pyjamas, what-day-is-it, I’ll-have-a-side-of-cold-stuffing-with-my-chocolate-breakfast chaos portal that exists between Christmas and New Year. IMO, ‘chaos portal’ is the only way to describe this period of the year. It’s been glorious, but now I’m thinking more about 2025 and putting some ideas into motion.

So, gather round and let me tell you a story …

My focus for 2025 is dissemination.

It’s time to do less research and share the ridiculously large archive of stuff I have amassed. It’s not helping or educating anyone when it’s stuck on my desktop, is it?

It’s time to get out of my own way.

I suffer from that heinous psychological wound that many of us do: the fear of being seen. I’ve had this wound since childhood. While staying small worked for me then, it doesn’t work anymore. So, it’s got to go in the sea for 2025.

An interesting thing about this wound is that it’s connected to feeling like a bit of a weirdo. My ideas are weird. I research weird, weird things – even by my standards 😅 I’m okay with that, by the way. I’m comfortable with my weirdness. It’s other people and their reactions that worry me. (Yeah, I know, it’s so silly. I’m working on it).

Anyway, I want you to notice that word I’m using. ‘Weird.’ That word is important.

Last year, I read an interesting piece about the word ‘weird’ that has really stuck with me. In the modern world, ‘weird’ is a pejorative term. Likely, this comes from Shakespeare. Think of the Weird Sisters in Macbeth who were so creepy and unsettling. Victorian Gothic writers also used the word ‘weird’ to describe unsettling situations and unexplainable phenomena, which gave it that otherworldly vibe.

But, ‘weird’ actually comes from ‘wyrd, an Old English, feminine noun that came from the verb ‘weorthan,’ meaning ‘to become.’ It is related to the Old Saxon ‘wurd,’ Old High German ‘wurt’ and Old Norse ‘urür,’ which all relate to the concept of fate or destiny.

Across ancient and medieval European mythologies, we always find ‘fate’ or ‘destiny’ depicted as female deities. Typically, three women who weave together the various threads of one’s destiny. Think of the Morai in Ancient Greece or the Norse Norns.

The Norns weaving fate in a book from 1893.

Fun fact – the Anglo-Saxons differed from other cultures in their understanding of fate. Unlike, say, the Greeks, they did not view fate as fixed and unavoidable. This quote from the Anglo-Saxon epic poem, Beowulf, sums it up beautifully:

“Wyrd often saves an undoomed hero as long as his courage is good.”

In other words, ‘wyrd’ was not an all-controlling, unavoidable power but one that worked in tandem with human traits, like bravery and honour. The female fates weaved your destiny, of course, but individuals had the power to effect the outcome.

Back to the idea of weaving (because I’m a bit obsessed with it), Anglo-Saxon women weaved literally and metaphorically. As well as weaving fate, did you know that the Old English word for ‘woman’ was ‘wif,’ which likely has connections to ‘wefan,’ the Old English noun for weaving. Some Anglo-Saxon women were also known as peace-weavers, meaning that they married a member of a rival tribe to end conflict and create peace.

In the shower this morning/early afternoon (don’t judge me), I was mulling over all of these ideas – of being weird, the etymology of wyrd, women as weavers – and also really honouring the fact that you do have to be a bit weird to do women’s history (well). You have to think outside of the box because women don’t fit into the historical framework since they were never meant to be a part of it. If only 0.5% of the historical record includes women, why waste your every moment trying to find them in there? It’s time to move beyond this ‘history plus women.’ We aren’t a bonus squirt of cream on a hot chocolate. We need a new framework entirely. I’ve been saying this for years, I know, but I’ll keep screaming it until A) everyone listens and B) I actually figure out what that looks like 😄

And then I thought about Beowulf and the idea of being able to change outcomes if you’re brave and honourable enough.

Yes, I know. Quite deep stuff for a whatever-day-it-is morning, but you can’t say I’m not committed to my work.

And then I did the thing I always do. I massively overthought it. I thought ‘nobody cares about this, don’t put it on Substack. You’re just being dead weird. Stop being weird.’ And all the enthusiasm just drained out of me.

So, I committed to not writing about any of this reading but, after my shower, I kept reading and you’re not going to believe what I found.

It turns out that in the 10^th century, a monk called Aelfric recorded the Old English word for ‘historian.’

Guess what it is …

Wyrd writere.

Yep. Weird writer.

A historian was a weird writer.

🤯🤯🤯

You couldn’t make it up, could you?! And I’m 100% taking this as a sign to heal the wound and keep going.

So, here’s to 2025, dear reader. Let’s get weird AF.

Until next time,

Kaye x