Norse Mythology
History of the Runes
The Elder Futhark
Frey's Aett
Hagal's Aett
Tyr's Aett
Casting the Runes
The Three-rune Reading
The Six-rune Reading
The Seven-rune Reading
The Cross Reading
The Celtic Cross Reading
The Sigel Reading
The Peorth Reading
Runescript
Bindrunes
Introducing runes
At their simplest, runes are the alphabet used be Norse, Germanic,
and Anglo-Saxon peoples from around 1500 years ago. However, they are also
a powerful divinatory and magical system.
Runes are equivalent to the Roman, Greek, Cyrillic, or Hebrew alphabets.
However, they are much more than an alphabet. "Rune" means "secret",
"mystery", or "hidden", and is related to the German raunen, meaning
"to whisper", and Irish run, meaning "a secret". Runes probably developed
as pictograms, and were normally carved into stone or wood. Originally
they consisted only of straight lines, but over the centuries the runic
alphabet became more cursive. This book deals only with the earliest and
most common runic alphabet, known as Elder Futhark.
The secrecy and power associated with runes stem partly from the fact that in most of Dark Age societies, reading and writing were known only to educated people. However, because of their likely pictographic origins, each rune also represents an object, such as an ox, as well as being a symbol for deeper, more esoteric meanings. A wild ox, for example, represents strength, and cattle represent wealth. Each rune is also associated with one of Norse gods. It is these deeper meanings that make runes such an important divinatory and magical system.
Norse Mythology
The Runes cannot be separated from the mythology of the people who
created them. The Norse and Germanic people had a rich and complex
mythology of god and heroes.
Norse mythology includes creation and end-of-the-world myths.
It has interrelated families of quarrelsome gods, who swap various
responsibilities as the mythology evolves.
The best-known Norse gods and goddesses are Odin, Thor, Tyr, Frey, Freya, Frigga, Balder, and Loki. Odin, also known as Woden or the Allfather, is often depicted wearing a wide-brimmed hat sloping over his blind eye, and is usually accompanied by two ravens, his messengers. Foremost among the gods, Odin was known for his wisdom, but also for his unpredictability - in common with many gods, he had a trickster side to his personality. Odin's son, Thor, was the god of weather, particularly thunder. He is often shown wielding a hammer, which he used to slay giants.
Tyr or Tiw was the original god of war, and some of his attributes were later taken on by Odin. Frey was a fertility god, and the god of summer. Freya, the goddess of sexuality and beauty, was Frey's sister, and at one point, his wife. Frigga, the goddess of fertility, is often confused with Freya, especially in the Germanic versions of the Norse myths. Frigga bore Odin a son, Balder, who was considered to be the most beautiful of all the gods. He was an expert of herbal medicine and the runes - he even had the runes carved on his tongue. Balder was eventually slain through the treachery of Loki, the god of lies, deceit, and trickery.
History of the runes
The Norse myths tell how Odin hung upside down from the great world tree,
Yggdrasil, for nine days and nights, impaled on his own spear, in order
to gain the wisdom of the runes.
The runes are associated with wisdom and well-being, words and deeds,
and the gods and magical power. They are both practical and mystical -
because the Norse were a very realistic people, the magical and the
religious were seen as a fundamental part of everyday life. If a particular
combination of runes (see Bindrunes) brought luck or protection, it made
sense for a warrior to carry it with him.
When Christianity spread into northern Europe in Dark Ages, the power of Norse gods waned, but not entirely. The two religions existed side by side to some extent, and there are many gravestones and crosses in northern Europe with the crucified Christ on one side and scenes from Norse mythology on the other. Often the inscriptions were in runes, rather than in the Roman alphabet.
Despite the efforts of the Catholic Church to stamp out their use, runes were used for writing, and for more esoteric purposes, for many more centuries. As late as 1639 there was an edict in Iceland forbidding their use, and even in the late 19th century, pastors in remote rural parts of Scandinavia were required to be able to read and write the runes.
Many elements of the Old Norse language have survived in modern Scandinavian languages, and in English, Dutch, and German. The Icelandic language is the closest present-day language to Old Norse. In English the occasional use of "Ye" to mean "The" is a strong reminder of the rune Thorn(), which is pronounced "Th" but looks similar to a "Y".
The Elder Futhark
The word "alphabet" comes from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet,
alpha and beta. Similarly, the Norse alphabet is called a futhark, after
the sounds of the first six characters - F(), U(), TH(), A(), R(), K().
Just as the Roman alphabet has slight differences in some modern languages,
such as the Dutch ij, the German |3, and the Danish ?A, the Norse alphabet,
the Futhark, has developed certain variations. These variations developed
over the centuries in different northern European countries. The standard
Elder Futhark contains 24 characters. They are divided into three groups,
called Aetts, each containing eight runes. However, there are Futharks with
as few as 16 runes. The Anglo-Saxon Futhark had 28 runes, and then 33 runes,
with the new runes being developed to stand for different variations of
sounds.
The 16-rune Younger Futhark, sometimes called the Danish Futhark, developed between AD 600 and 850, and dropped certain sounds. This later made it necessary to create "dotted runes" to distinguish between, for example, K and G, T and D, and P and B.
Modern-day understanding of the development of the Futhark has been confused further by the various calligraphic styles used in different countries over the centuries. Some runes changed their appearance, sound, name, and meaning.
Occasionally, books on runes add an extra rune to the standard 24. This is known as Wyrd, and it is completely blank. It means fate, destiny, and karma. It is a very recent addition to the rune-set, and is sometimes considered unnecessary, because many of the runes already contain its meaning.
Frey's Aett
The elder Futhark is divided into three groups of runes, called aetts.
The first aett is named after the fertility god Frey, and contains eight
runes - Feoh, Ur,
Thorn, Ansur,
Rad, Ken,
Gyfu, and Wyn.