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Richard Grinell, Coventry, England
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OLD NORSE FOR KILL

9/30/2019

 
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In previous articles I have attempted to show that the February 3rd 1974 SLA Letter was mailed by the Symbionese Liberation Army, along with the Citizen Card and Red Phantom Letter. However, the Exorcist Letter mailed on January 29th 1974 (five days earlier) is difficult to ascertain whether it was mailed by the Zodiac Killer or the left-wing militant group. The SLA Letter stated "Dear Mr Editor, Did you know that the initials SLA (Symbionese Liberation Army) spell "sla", an old Norse word meaning "kill". a friend". Many have argued that the author of this correspondence incorrectly attributed the word "kill" to "sla" in Old Norse - but this is not true. 

Sla in Old Norse can be inferred as "kill", to which the author of this communication claimed. Sla in Old Norse means "to strike" or "to smite". The archaic use of the word "smite" as shown by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, defines "smite" as to kill or severely injure. In Wiktionary it is shown as the ability to strike down or kill with deadly force. So (in archaic usage like Old Norse) "sla" means "smite", and "smite" is used as "kill". Here is a PDF of Old Norse from York University, compiled by Ross G. Arthur. This will confirm that the author of the SLA Letter was correct all along. The author didn't write "Dear Mr Editor, Did you know that the initials SLA (Symbionese Liberation Army) spell "sla", an old Norse word with a direct translation to "kill". a friend". They used the word "meaning", which is something that it expresses or represents - and "sla" can represent or express the word "kill" through "smite". The whole communication was dedicated to highlighting the word "kill" through Old Norse.

Old Norse was a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements from about the 9th to the 13th centuries. The Proto-Norse language developed into Old Norse by the 8th century, and Old Norse began to develop into the modern North Germanic languages in the mid- to late 14th century, ending the language phase known as Old Norse. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse is found well into the 15th century. Old Norse was divided into three dialects: Old West Norse, Old East Norse, and Old Gutnish. Old West and East Norse formed a dialect continuum, with no clear geographical boundary between them. For example, Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway, although Old Norwegian is classified as Old West Norse, and Old West Norse traits were found in western Sweden. Most speakers spoke Old East Norse in what is present day Denmark and Sweden. Old Gutnish, the more obscure dialectal branch, is sometimes included in the Old East Norse dialect due to geographical associations. It developed its own unique features and shared in changes to both other branches. Inscriptions have become synonymous with Runes. Wikipedia.

If the Symbionese Liberation Army were the architects of the SLA Letter, then the whitewashed symbols of the Exorcist Letter from the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper on January 31st 1974 would only be known to the designer of the SLA Letter, If those symbols also highlighted the word "kill" or the verb "to kill", we could conclude the SLA Letter was simply the answer to the Exorcist Letter. There have been several examples of people trying to compare runic symbols to the Halloween Card and Asian style characters to the Exorcist Letter. Kevin Robert Brooks, an avid Zodiac researcher, used neither in decoding the Exorcist Letter to spell the words "To Kill", and thereby tying the January 29th and February 3rd communications into one neat bundle (shown below).  

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Bearing in mind the Old Norse element of the SLA Letter, I thought I would make a provisory attempt at looking for a runic connection to the Exorcist Letter that complimented Kevin Robert Brooks solution. There is an eastern Rhaetian language that used runic symbols. It is clear that in the centuries leading up to Roman imperial times, the Rhaetians had at least come under Etruscan influence, as the Rhaetic inscriptions are written in what appears to be a northern variant of the Etruscan alphabet. The ancient Roman sources mention the Rhaetic people as being reputedly of Etruscan origin, so there may at least have been some ethnic Etruscans who had settled in the region by that time. In the diagram below I have taken the Rhaetian symbols and their corresponding English letters to spell the combined wording T'Kill.

The letters K, I and L mimic the symbols used by Kevin Robert Brooks to form the word "kill", and the exclamation type symbol is used to form "T'Kil", thereby phonetically creating the sound "To Kill" using runic symbols (running from left to right on the Exorcist Letter). This last section is not claiming an answer in the slightest, just searching for a correlation between ancient or archaic characters in keeping with Old Norse from the following communication.
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JD
9/30/2019 09:01:11 pm

Just an odd note re: Norse, Mikado, and snickersnee

https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/columnists/mcintyre/bal-in-a-word-snickersnee-20150420-story.html

Richard
9/30/2019 11:48:14 pm

Can't access link fro Europe JD. Can you copy and paste relevant parts.

Richard
9/30/2019 11:52:00 pm

Are you referring to Middle English KNIF.

JD
10/1/2019 04:33:08 am

Yeah, regarding KNIF. Here is the article:

SNICKERSNEE

You are probably most familiar with this word for a large knife (pronounced SNICK-er-snee) from Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado: "As I gnashed my teeth, / When from its sheath I drew my snicker-snee."

But the word we have not from Japan but from the Netherlands. The Dutch steken, "to stab," and snijden, "to cut," appear to be the roots. The Oxford English Dictionary cites a 1727 entry from Abel Boyer's Dictionnaire Royal, "Snicker-snee (the Dutch way of fighting with pointed Knives)." The OED also lists an early eighteenth-century sense as a verb, "to fight with knives."

So it appears that the word was a noun and a verb for the fight before it developed its current sense of the weapon involved. Knife itself we have from the Old Norse knifr, which became the Middle English knif. (The k was pronounced then.) The bodkin, a stiletto or instrument for making holes in cloth, was also a Middle English word, bodekin, from the fourteenth century. The cutlass, from the Middle French coutelas, came into English in the sixteenth century. The machete was lifted straight from Spanish in the sixteenth century. And the bowie knife is all-American, having been named in 1846 for James Bowie, soldier, slave trader, speculator, and Texas revolutionary.

To add an irrelevant detail, once when editing an article on the enduring popularity of the distinctive Malaysian edged weapon, I indulged myself in the headline, "A kris is still a kris."

Look sharp.

Example: From Ray Bradbury's Golden Apples of the Sun (1953): "Here we've come armed to the teeth, I with my snickersnee and Sam with his academic blunderbuss, but the victim has fled."

Richard
10/1/2019 02:30:48 pm

Thanks for linking JD, and yes, Knif would fit with the symbols and the archaic element. Personally, I have never seen a better solution than Kevin's because of the two communications fitting seamlessly together under the banner of "kill". Also, the lines preceding the symbols of "If I do not see this note in your paper, I will do something nasty, which you know I'm capable of doing" fit seamlessly with the answer "To Kill".

[1] "If I do not see this note in your paper, I will do something nasty, which you know I'm capable of doing. To Kill".

[2] "If I do not see this note in your paper, I will do something nasty, which you know I'm capable of doing. Knife".

Number 2 doesn't work for me, whereas number 1 does. I know you weren't suggesting it does necessarily, but I thought I'd just expand on why I like the Kevin Robert Brooks solution the best. We knew the Zodiac (or impersonator of Zodiac) was capable of killing. Kevin, however, does believe both communications were Zodiac. Thanks for the extra information mind. It places extra options on the table.

JD
10/1/2019 07:47:48 pm

No, I wasn't meaning knife as a solution for the symbols. I see now I should have made my comments a little bit clearer. Sorry about that. I only mentioned it because the article discussed the Mikado and Old Norse. A person on a mental track to mention "Old Norse" in the SLA letter is probably in line with someone who would pick up the origins of snickersnee from the Mikado. Or not. Just a bit of trivia, really.

Unless Zodiac was in reality Mack the Knife, then it might make sense as a solution. Hmm.. only 12 letters. Nah.

BB
10/3/2019 10:33:22 am

Richard

Others that also make sense are: DIE, SLA, Kami, I Kill - Also the dot is Morris code for the letter "e"

Also the Zodiac's name could be George

With the Washington and Cherry street reference to the Myth of chopping down the cherry tree.

Perhaps George Karadanis

BB
10/3/2019 01:59:19 pm

George Washington
George Karadanis

Also the 18 missing symbols can represent the 18 missing minutes
from Nixon/Watergate tapes

BB
10/4/2019 11:51:02 am

Richard
I made yet another mistake - sorry- I need to watch the time line.

President Nixon assumed office in January 1969 - "Super Tuesday" being the first Tuesday in November. Nixon was elected on that day in 1968. LHR was sandwiched in-between.

The 18 missing minutes were not able to be discovered until the taping system was turned off on July 18, 1973.
Yet the Zodiac was born August 3rd 1969 with the putting together of the 408 cipher.

The time line is the most important thing. Prescott Bush Hired Nixon to work for him and Nixon gave his son Poppy Bush an office in the White house. Poppy AKA George H.W. Bush became head of the CIA. He had working for him Howard Hunt whom blackmailed Nixon.
Which is what got his wife Dorothy taken-out on Dec.8,1972. CREEP payed the money at the demand of Nixon "...payoff Hunt at all costs." Dorothy was killed when her jet crashed. But, the money was scooped up by the FBI.

Was this Washington and Cherry a sneaky reference to George Poppy Bush or was it as blatant as John Kennedy Jr. starting the magazine "George" because he was haunted everyday by the question of - who killed your father?

Richard
10/4/2019 12:34:55 pm

BB, I think that may be a question for Rubislaw, because I believe a connection exists between the Nixon card and the SLA, rather than Zodiac. The Symbionese Liberation Army wrote several communiques mentioning Nixon, but the nearest Zodiac ever got was threatening "goverment life". It doesn't mean that Zodiac didn't have disdain for public figures such as Nixon, but he avoided any direct mention of him. We have the questionable Carter letter, but that's about it.

Rubislaw 32 link
10/4/2019 01:32:08 pm

Tough to answer,BB and Richard.

I'll just take this opportunity,to mention something ''probably ridiculous'',on the ''SLA'' letter.

The Cockney Londoners are well known for their eccentric use of the English language....with rhyming slang,a highlight.

In some publications of the SLA letter,there are hints,that the Zodiac might have been influenced by ''Ed the horse'',with the capital ''E'',in and surrounding,the term ''Dear Editor''.

Well,the Cockneys are known,for calling a horse,'' an 'orse ''.

So,it could be that adopting the term '' Norse '',could be a play on '' an 'orse ''.

Strictly,in ''deadpan'' humour terms,of course.

Rubislaw 32 link
10/4/2019 01:41:25 pm

...apparently,'' orse '',as an adverb or adjective,means '' otherwise ''.

BB
10/4/2019 06:34:02 pm

Robert E. Hunter, Jr was born May 23, 1922 Dali-day and was a banker at the Crocker National Bank where the SLA killed and robbed the bank - customer Myrna Lee Opsahl, was killed when in April 1975 William Harris's wife Emily discharged the shotgun she was holding by accident. The following month they were all killed by the FBI in a shoot out that happened live on TV in L.A..on the 17th of May. I remember watching - it was very load and scary.

Rubislaw 32 link
10/5/2019 08:47:44 am

Fascinating,for you to have watched the shoot out,on TV,BB.

It's the ''bad ones'' you remember most.

I remember sitting with my mother,listening to events in Dallas,1963,on the BBC World Service,in West Africa.

I wasn't near a TV,when 911 happened....I was out and about,working in a Scottish provincial city.Suddenly,there was non-stop police sirens [ fear of car bombs],and presently,the skys became full of aircraft,queuing to land,at the local airport.

And,this was across the Atlantic and a few thousand miles,from what was happening on the East side of the USA [!].

The fear of Armageddon,was real.

Rubislaw 32 link
10/5/2019 05:56:33 am

There exists,in the HEARNAP files,an official assessment of the SLA,by a special agent,tasked with this assessment asignment.

[....don't have a reference,offhand,I regret....]

The opinion documented,states that the agent is of the opinion that,a criminal,such as a serial killer,would ''creep out'' true to the cause SLA members....as would such a type of criminal do the same,to a law abiding citizen.

''Anathema'' to the SLA,with their ideals and philosophy,then....albeit an ''opinion'' of an FBI agent,employed to be an ''expert'' on these matters.

So,I can only add that,it is difficult to see,the author of the Nixon postcard,being a genuine member or sympathizer of the SLA.

The SLA,like most of these revolutionary outfits,started with ''high ideals'' and morals.And,like most,they suddeny realized that they were going to need financing and,on a much bigger scale,if they were going to succeed.

Thats when it all goes ''pear-shaped''.Abduction,murder,armed robbery.....and the ''rest''.


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    The Zodiac Killer may have given us the answer almost word-for-word when he wrote PS. The Mt. Diablo Code concerns Radians & # inches along the radians. The code solution identified was Estimate: Four Radians and Five Inches To read more, click the image.
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