An Introduction to Runes

Runes are an ancient Germanic alphabet, used for writing, divination and magick throughout northern Europe, Scandinavia, the British Isles, and Iceland from about 100 B.C.E. to 1600 C.E. Each rune translates into a word or a phrase signifying concepts important to the early peoples who used them, representing the forces of nature and mind.

Each rune has a story attached to it, a relationship to a Norse God. Odin (Norse High God of 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, took them up, and the runic knowledge gave him power. He later passed on this knowledge to Freya (the Vanir goddess). 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. 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. But what other alphabets may have influenced runes? Remember that over the millennia there was a great migration of people, spreading from the birthplace of mankind, in the "middle east" to what are now Europe and northern Africa. Ancient people did travel--a lot--and long before the Vikings became known as explorers and traders. Runes were used to write many languages including, Gothic, German, Frisian, English, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Lithuanian, Russian, Hebrew and other Semitic languages (due to trade relations with the Khazars, a Semitic tribe of traders of the Silk Road).

Runecraft operates on an ancient form of psychology. Even back in Viking times, there was a remarkable understanding of the human psyche. They recognized cause and effect, and the interconnectedness of all things. The word to describe this interconnectedness was "wyrd", which was eventually perverted into the modern meaning of "weird". It did not originally mean something unusual or strange. Rather, it referred to the far-reaching effects of that which one does. The concept of "fate" was also not as we know it now. Instead of a helpless predestination, "fate" meant a destiny created by one's earlier actions. Wyrd was pictured as a web, like that of a spider. The symbology is excellent. When the spider steps onto a thread (a path) the vibrations affect the entire web and that which is contained within the web, just as our actions affect our immediate world and those around us, and the actions of others affect our lives.

Runes are an oracle from which one seeks advice. They work best if you detail your current circumstances and then ask a specific question. When one does a runic reading, one usually addresses a particular issue, and examines the past, the present and the "future", or rather "what will be if one follows the path one appears to be on". Rune readings are sometimes obscure. They hint toward answers, but you have to figure out the details. This is when the rune casters intuition becomes paramount. Runic divination or "rune casting" is not "fortunetelling" in the sense that one actually sees the future. Instead, runes give a means of analyzing the path and a likely outcome.

The future is not fixed. It changes with everything one does, so if one does not like the prediction the path can be changed. A runecaster does not see the future. He/she examines cause and effect and points out a likely outcome. Not exactly occult, is it? It's not supernatural and it's not very mysterious--although the uninitiated considered it a delving into mystery, much like a patient of a psychiatrist might. It's certainly not magical or demonic. Instead it is a methodology for examining the path one is on and what the effects might be, by making use of one's subconscious (i.e. an "intuitive perception"), unfettered by limited conscious belief systems.