Runes

Many people associate runes with Vikings, and rightfully so. However the history of runes goes back beyond the Viking Age and the runic script some people may think of as Viking / Norse is not always correct. If you were thinking of getting a rune tattoo, then there are a few things to take into account. Let’s have a quick look at where the history of the runes starts.

Different writing systems 

There are multiple runic corpuses or alphabets, with the three major ones being the Elder Futhark, the Anglo-Saxon/Frisian Futhorc and the Younger Futhark. Here we will try to give a quick introduction to the various systems.

Runes as a writing system were largely written down phonetically, with each rune representing a sound. Individually, runes are also thought to have had a spiritual meaning. This is where the idea of the magic runes comes from, although this is still contested. Runes were certainly used for magic and spiritual purposes, however whether they all individually held a meaning is unsure. The idea that runes held magical individual value (e.g X means Y) comes from the various rune poems that survive in the historical record. These poems give an insight into the symbolic world that was connected to runes individually, however these poems and their meaning have changed over time and are sometimes poorly reconstructed.

The Elder Futhark

Most people are familiar with the Elder Futhark due to popular culture. These runes rose to fame around the time of the New Age movement in the 70s and later. Nowadays, many websites that cover esoteric topics and write about runes and Norse myth use the Elder Futhark as their go-to runic alphabet and associate these runes with Viking Age culture. This corpus however does not have its roots in the Viking Age.

The Elder Futhark is the oldest known form of the runic alphabets. These runes were used by early Germanic peoples from around the 2nd to 8th centuries CE. They are named after the first six letters of the set: F, U, Þ (Th), A, R, and K—spelling out Futhark. The complete Elder Futhark counts 24 runes in its entirety. This Futhark would lay the foundation of later runic alphabets, such as the Anglo Saxon/Frisian Futhorc, which is considered the successor of the Elder Futhark. 

The elder Futhar is written as followed:

ᚠᚢᚦᚨᚱᚲᚷᚹᚺᚾᛁᛃᛇᛈᛉᛊᛏᛒᛖᛗᛚᛜᛞᛟ

Tacitus in his ‘Germania’ may be the first to have described runes. His contacts who had been in the areas above the Roman ‘Limes' Border tell about inscriptions on weapons (?). It is however impossible to tell if these were writing or decorations that the Roman soldiers were unfamiliar with. If Tacitus’ sources were correct and it was indeed runic writing, then it falls within the time period of the Elder Futhark. Spear shafts and other weapons from the period that are known from the archaeological record indeed show runic writing.

The first archaeological find with confirmed Elder Futhark writing is a stone/comb. 

The Anglo Saxon or Anglo Frisian Futhhorc (400-1100)

The Anglo-Saxon Futhorc is a version of the runic alphabet used by the early Anglo-Saxons in what is now England. The Futhorc is the runic basis for what we know as the Old English language. The Anglo Saxon Futhorc is sometimes called the Anglo Frisian Futhorc because of the tribes who migrated from Denmark, Northern-Germany and Frisia to England. Some runes which were unique to this area and made it over to England; whereas other runes from the Futhorc only occur in England respectfully. 

The Futhorc alphabet is predominantly found in the North Sea coast area and England and has runes that are not found elsewhere. Just like the Futhark, the Futhorc is not a Viking Age alphabet. In thIs corpus, we see an increase from the 24 runes that we originally saw in the Futhark to 27 to sometimes 33 in the Futhorc.

The entire Futhorc is written as followed:

ᚠᚢᚦᚩᚱᚳᚷᚹᚻᚾᛁᛄᛇᛈᛉᛋᛏᛒᛖᛗᛚᛝᛞᛟᛠᛡᛢ

The seax of Beaghnoth

This find, sometimes called the Thames seax, is the only find showing the complete Futhorc alphabet with all the runes. Why exactly the whole script is inlaid into the blade is unknown, but it is a unique insight into the Futhorc corpus. The inscription ends with the name Beaghnoth. Whether or not this is the maker or the owner lf the blad is not known. 

GaeGoGae 

To read about the famous GaeGoGae find, an inscription in the Futhorc script, see the page on the background from the song Alfadirhaiti

 

The Younger Futhark (800-1100)

So is there such a thing as Viking runes? Well, kind of. The Younger Futhark is a set of 16 runes used mainly in Scandinavia—places like Norway, Sweden, and Denmark—during the Viking Age. Compared to the Elder Futhark, the Younger Furthark is composed of fewer runes than the Elder Futhark. The spoken language of the Viking Age was what we nowadays call Old Norse. Some individual runes used multiple vowels representing multiple sounds within the language. Atop of that, the written inscriptions used in the Younger Futhark came in different variants, too. 

There are two main versions of the Younger Futhark:

• Long-branch runes – Used mostly on monuments and official inscriptions; they have more elaborate shapes.
•  Short-twig runes – Simpler and used more often for everyday writing like on wood or tools.

The writing (long branch)

ᚠᚢᚦᚬᚱᚴᚼᚾᛁᛅᛋᛏᛒᛘᛚᛦ

Unfortunately short branch runes are not available in unicode on computers.

 

Runes and rune magic?

Runes were not only symbols that formed a writing system, but had apart from their phonetic value also a symbolic and spiritual value. 

Previously we have already covered the various runic writing systems including the names of the runes in their respective languages and regions. Below this page we will go into the meaning of the runes and how much we (don’t) know about their spiritual meaning.

Above we can read the runic names of the Elder Futhark and their supposed meaning. To talk about any ‘meaning’ of a rune, we need to look at how much basis there is in the reconstruction of the rune. A good overview of the basis of reconstruction is provided by Mees, a prominent researcher on runes and their historical background, in 2023.

Intrinsic value?

It is often thought that runes had intrinsic magical value, something which was popularised in the last 150 years and been further fuelled by popular culture and internet. Although runes had a practical use outside their use as a writing system and runes were used to write out charms and spells etc, it is very much debated whether single runes carried a magical value of themselves, but words, spells or combinations of runes are thought to have carried a magical meaning.

“The idea of runes being inherently magical is deeply embedded in modern popular culture, but in historical terms, magic was only one of several uses to which runes were put.” - MacLeod & Mees, 2006

What we know about the runes and their meaning does not only come from the archaeological record. Various runic poems describing the individual runes survive in the historical records. The three primary runic poems are the Anglo Saxon rune poem, the Norwegian rune poem and the Icelandic rune poem. The poems taught more than just language - they conveyed moral lessons, proverbs, or wisdom literature. Most of these poems only survive because they were written down much later than they originally were used, which makes the argument for individual runes having an intrinsic magical value more problematic. The poems do however do give an interesting insight into the symbolic value. How much this value is correct to the period the runes were used in is difficult to say.

Below we will show the Fe rune from the Old English rune poem and show how similar some of the runes can be despite their geographic difference and difference in time.

We show the Fehu rune in the Old English rune poem (left) and the same rune in the Norwegian rune poem (right)

(Old English) ᚠ: Treasure is a comfort for every man

Yet must every one give it generously

If he wants to obtain honor from the lord.

(Norwegian) ᚠ: Wealth causes family strife, the wolf breeds in the forest.

 

What about magic in inscriptions?

From the archaeological record we have many runic inscriptions that have a magical meaning or value connected to them, some of which are clearly blessings or curses. These are undeniably used for magic. Some combinations of runes translate to a word that we know the meaning of, but don't know why it pops up as often as they do, like the enigmatic ALU inscriptions. Below we see a bracteat from Skåne with the alu inscription at the end of a spell. 

 

From Västragötaland, where VIKINK is located, we have an amulet with a spell on it. This spell is also used in Heilung’s song Galgaldr and translates to: 

Gal anda viðr, gangla viðr, r†ðanda viðr, viðr rinnanda, viðr sitianda, viðr sign(and)a, viðr f(a)randa, viðr fliuganda. S[kal] alt fyrna (?) ok um døyia.

‘I incant against the spirit, against the walking (spirit), against the riding one, against the running one, against the sitting one, against the signing one, against the travelling one, against the flying one. It shall completely wither (?) and die.’ 

 

Evidently this is an incredibly broad and difficult topic. We will elaborate more on this page in the future.