Introduction to Runes
Runes are an ancient Germanic alphabet, which have been used throughout the ages for writing, divination and magick. They were used throughout northern Europe, Scandinavia, the British Isles, and Iceland from about 100 B.C.E. to 1600 C.E. Runic inscriptions of great age have even been found in North America, supporting stories that the Vikings arrived in the Americas long before Columbus.
Tacitus describes a form of divination used by Germanic tribes, in Chapter X of his Germania:
"To divination and casting of lots, they pay attention beyond any other people. Their method of casting lots is a simple one: they cut a branch from a fruit-bearing tree and divide it into small pieces which they mark with certain distinctive signs and scatter at random onto a white cloth. Then, the priest of the community if the lots are consulted publicly, or the father of the family if it is done privately, after invoking the gods and with eyes raised to heaven, picks up three pieces, one at a time, and interprets them according to the signs previously marked upon them."
Runes are an oracle from which one seeks answers and advice. They work best with a specific question or questions even though Rune readings are sometimes obscure and hint toward answers whilst leaving you to figure out the details.
Runic divination or "rune casting" is not "fortune telling" in the sense that one actually sees the future. Instead, runes give the querent a means of analyzing the path that they are on and a likely outcome. Runes work on the premise that the future is not fixed and changes with everything one does. If you dont like the prediction, the option is always there to change your path.
Since ancient times, runes have been used for divination and magic, in addition to writing. The word "rune" actually means mystery, secret or whisper and each rune has esoteric meanings and properties associated with it, beyond its mundane meaning and phonetic value. Each translates into a word or a phrase signifying concepts important to the early peoples who used them and representing the forces of nature and the mind. Each rune has a story attached to it as well as a relationship to a Norse God.
Odin, the Norse High God of the Aesir, hung from the world tree, Yggdrasil, impaled on his own spear, for nine days and nights in order to gain the knowledge of runes. When the runes appeared below him, he reached down and took them up, and the runic knowledge gave him power which he later passed on to the Vanir goddess Freya. She, in turn, taught him the magic of seidr. Heimdall, the god who guarded the Rainbow Bridge, taught the runes to mankind.
Runic alphabets first appeared among German tribes in central and eastern Europe. Some runes symbols are likely to have been acquired from other alphabets, such as the Greek, Etruscan, and the Early Roman. The runes were made of straight lines to make the characters suitable for cutting into wood or stone and the earliest runic inscriptions on stone are dated to the late 3rd century AD, although it is probable that runic alphabets had been in use for some centuries before that time.
The Old Germanic Runic alphabet or "Elder Futhark" contains 24 runes.
The first six runes of the alphabet spell out the word "FUTHARK". As the runes spread northwards into Scandinavia, some rune symbols were dropped and the alphabet was reduced to only 16 runes. Between 400 and 600 AD, three Germanic tribes, the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes, invaded Britain. They brought the runes with them, however, the forms of several of the runes changed, notably the runes for A/O, C/K, H, J, S, and Ng. Changes in the language also led to nine runes being added to the alphabet to compensate for the extra sounds, and several runes were given different corresponding letters thus expanding the alphabet to 33 symbols. This has become known as the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc. The rune names themselves have been passed down relatively intact and although no manuscript exists listing the names of the older, Germanic runes, the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian rune poems agree to such an extent that their common origin can be deduced.
