The 24 Elder Futhark Runes and Their Meanings

what is rune

When cast, the rune symbolizes determination, doing the right thing, persistence in the face of obstacles, and detached discipline unswayed by the pull of emotion, and self-mastery. It might suggest you need to reconnect with your power or purpose and become your own leader. Eihwaz is will smith appeared to slap chris rock after he made a joke about smith’s wife the word for “ash or yew tree,” but it’s mean to symbolize Yggradsil, the central sacred tree of Norse mythology.

How Runes Are Read

It also symbolizes the harmony and trust between two different beings. If you’ve been struggling through a dark night of the soul, this rune represents warmth and restorative, healing energy so that you can move forward towards what you are meant to do. This could mean spiritually or it could mean more literally if in regards to a project, plan, or relationship. This is an indicator that things have been put on hold and it is time to go within. If things have been overflowing in a negative way, it could also represent the need for boundaries.

what is rune

Unlike Younger Futhark’s reduction in characters from Elder Futhark, in Britain and Frisia (in what is now the Netherlands), things went in the opposite direction. Arguably beginning as early as the 5th century CE, runes were actually added – between four and eight – in this script known as Anglo-Saxon Futhorc (or Fuþorc, synonymous with Anglo-Frisian Fuþorc). Anglo-Saxons and Frisians how to buy cult dao agreed to disagree on some finer points of usage, though, and earlier and later Anglo-Saxon runic use also varied. However, deciphering runestones was not straightforward, as words were not always separated (by otherwise present points or double points between letters) runes were sometimes left out altogether. The script evolved over the centuries, but from the Elder Futhark to the Medieval Futhark in 13th century, the style remained essentially the same. Most of the runic letters are made from a vertical line that have other lines or curves attached to them.

The Meanings of the Runes

  1. It is an indicator to look at what needs are going unmet and what rebalancing or internal work must take place.
  2. His paradigmatic sacrifice was likely symbolically imitated in initiation ceremonies during which the candidate learned the lore of the runes,1819 but, unfortunately, no concrete evidence of such a practice has survived into our times.
  3. These runes represent beginnings and endings, chaos, destruction, or the seasons.
  4. The oldest clear inscriptions are found in Denmark and northern Germany.

Presumably, then, after Odin discovered the runes by ritually sacrificing himself to himself and fasting for nine days while staring into the waters of the Well of Urd, it was he who imparted the runes to the first human runemasters. His paradigmatic sacrifice was likely symbolically imitated in initiation ceremonies during which the candidate learned the lore of the runes,1819 but, unfortunately, no concrete evidence of such a practice has survived into our times. Runes were traditionally carved onto stone, wood, bone, metal, or some similarly hard surface rather than drawn with ink and pen on parchment.

Anglo-Saxon runes (5th to 11th centuries)

The long branch style is attributed to Danish, while the short twig is connected to the Swedes and the Norse. Laguz translated to mean “water,” but it really represents the intense power and rolling force of the element. It’s more like the power of the waterfall or the ocean versus the gentle stream. Though, that said, even the rocks within the stream are eventually worn down by the flow of water. It can help you flow and work with the energies in order to manifest into being that which you desire.

Body of inscriptions

It symbolizes a time when you are ignorning your needs or when you are distressed because your needs are not met. It is an indicator to look at what needs are going unmet and what rebalancing or internal work must take place. It also may symbolize your resilience in the face of emotional turmoil and determination to continue forward on the path.

My favourite is the runic alphabets’ inspiration of (among others) the dwarven script known as Cirth as developed by J.R.R. Tolkien in his The Lord of the Rings universe. A runic alphabet consisting of a mixture of Elder Futhark with Anglo-Saxon futhorc is recorded in a treatise called De Inventione Litterarum, ascribed to Hrabanus Maurus and preserved in 8th- and 9th-century manuscripts mainly from the southern part of the Carolingian Empire (Alemannia, Bavaria). Elder Futhark (also Elder Fuþark – þ being the ‘th’ sound in English ‘thin’ – or older Fuþark/Futhark) is the earliest classified runic script and was used until c. Counting 24 characters and being surprisingly uniform, it is named after the first six characters in the alphabet (f-u- þ (th)-a-r-k).

The same curse and use of the word, rune, is also found on the Stentoften Runestone. There also are some inscriptions suggesting a medieval belief in the magical significance of runes, such as the Franks Casket (AD 700) panel. Runic inscriptions from the 400-year period 150–550 AD are described as “Period I”. These inscriptions are generally in Elder Futhark, but the set of letter shapes and bindrunes employed is far from standardized. Notably the j, s, and ŋ runes undergo considerable modifications, while others, such as p and ï, remain unattested altogether prior to the first full futhark row on the Kylver Stone (c. 400 AD).

The ð-sound (modern English “th” in “weather”), for example, is not listed in the rune-row below, as it is the dotted version (ᚧ) of the ᚦ rune (which stands for þ (“th” in English “thin”). The modern study how to buy bitcoin with cash in the uk of runes was initiated during the Renaissance, by Johannes Bureus (1568–1652). Bureus viewed runes as holy or magical in a kabbalistic sense. The study of runes was continued by Olof Rudbeck Sr (1630–1702) and presented in his collection Atlantica. Anders Celsius (1701–1744) further extended the science of runes and travelled around the whole of Sweden to examine the runstenar. From the “golden age of philology” in the 19th century, runology formed a specialized branch of Germanic linguistics.