The Origins of the Runes

The Ledberg Runestone

This page is the second part of a four-part article on the runes. The other three parts are: Part I: Introduction Part III: Runic Philosophy and Magic Part IV: The Meanings of the Runes While runologists argue over many of the details of the historical origins of runic writing, there is widespread agreement on a general outline. The runes are presumed to have been derived from one of the many Old Italic alphabets in use among the Mediterranean peoples of the first century !, who lived to the south of the "ermanic tribes. script.
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!arlier "ermanic sacred symbols, such as those

preserved in northern !uropean petroglyphs, were also li'ely influential in the development of the The earliest possibly runic inscription is found on the Meldorf brooch, which was manufactured in the north of modern-day "ermany around +* !. The inscription is highly ambiguous, however, and scholars are divided over whether its letters are runic or ,oman. The earliest unambiguous runic inscriptions are found on the -imose comb from -imose, .enmar' and the /vre 0tabu spearhead from southern 1orway, both of which date to appro2imately )3* !. The earliest 'nown carving of
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the entire futhar', in order, is that on the 4ylver stone from "otland, 0weden, which dates to roughly 5** !.
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The transmission of writing from southern !urope to northern !urope li'ely too' place via "ermanic warbands, the dominant northern !uropean military institution of the period, who would have

encountered Italic writing firsthand during campaigns amongst their southerly neighbors. This
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hypothesis is supported by the association that runes have always had with the god Odin, who, in the 8roto-"ermanic period, under his original name *Woanaz, was the divine model of the human warband leader and the invisible patron of the warband9s activities. The ,oman historian Tacitus tells us that Odin :;Mercury< in the interpretatio romana= was already established as the dominant god in the pantheons of many of the "ermanic tribes by the first century. Whether the runes and the cult of
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Odin arose together, or whether the latter predated the former, is of little conse>uence for our purposes here. ?s esteemed Indo-!uropean scholar "eorges .um@Ail notes: If Odin was first and always the highest magician, we realize that the runes, however recent they may be, would have fallen under his sway. New and particularly effective implements for magic wor s, they would become by definition and without contest a part of his domain. ! Odin could have been the patron, the possessor par e"cellence of this redoubtable power of secrecy and secret nowledge, before the name of that nowledge became the technical name of signs both phonetic and magic which came from the #lps or elsewhere, but did not lose its former, larger sense. #)+% Brom the perspective of the ancient "ermanic peoples themselves, however, the runes came from no source as mundane as an Old Italic alphabet. The runes were never ;invented,< but are instead eternal, pre-e2istent forces that Odin himself discovered by undergoing a tremendous ordeal. This tale has come down to us in the Old 1orse poem$%vam%l :;The 0ayings of the Cigh One<=: I now that I hung On the wind&blasted tree #ll of nights nine, 'ierced by my spear #nd given to Odin, (yself sacrificed to myself On that pole Of which none now Where its roots run. No aid I received, Not even a sip from the horn. 'eering down, I too up the runes & )creaming I grasped them & *hen I fell bac from there.#)3%

The tree from which Odin hangs himself is surely none other than Yggdrasil, the world-tree at the center of the "ermanic cosmos whose branches and roots hold the Nine Worlds. .irectly below the world-tree is the Well of Urd, which contains the entirety of the past within its depths, and is therefore a source of incredible wisdom. The runes themselves seem to have their native dwellingplace in its waters. This is also suggested by another Old 1orse poem, the +,lusp% :;Insight of the 0eeress<=: *here stands an ash called -ggdrasil, # mighty tree showered in white hail. .rom there come the dews that fall in the valleys. It stands evergreen above /rd0s Well. .rom there come maidens, very wise, *hree from the la e that stands beneath the pole. One is called /rd, another +erdandi, ) uld the third1 they carve into the tree *he lives and destinies of children.#)$% These ;three maidens< are the Norns, and their carvings surely consist of runes. We therefore have a clear association between the Well of Drd, the runes, and the ability to shape the course of destiny E one of the foremost tas's of "ermanic magic. 8resumably, 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 Drd, it was he who imparted the runes to the first human runemasters. Cis paradigmatic sacrifice was li'ely symbolically imitated in initiation ceremonies during which the candidate learned the lore of the runes, no concrete evidence of such a practice has survived into our times.
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but, unfortunately,

Runic Philosophy and Magic

The Mjbro Runestone

This page is the third part of a four-part article on the runes. The other three parts are: Part I: Introduction Part II: The Origins of the Runes Part IV: The Meanings of the Runes In the pre- hristian "ermanic worldview, the spo'en word possesses frightfully strong creative powers. ?s 0candinavian scholar atharina ,audvere notes, ;The pronouncement of words was recogniAed to have a tremendous influence over the concerns of life. The impact of a sentence uttered aloud could not be >uestioned and could never be ta'en bac' E as if it had become somehow physical. F Words create reality, not the other way around.< This is, in an important sense, an
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anticipation of the philosophy of language advanced by the "erman philosopher Martin Ceidegger in his seminal essay2anguage. Bor Ceidegger, language is an inescapable structuring element of perception. Words don9t merely reflect our perception of the worldG rather, we perceive and e2perience the world in the particular ways that our language demands of us. Thin'ing outside of language is literally unthin'able, because all thought ta'es place within language E hence the inherent, godli'e creative powers of words. In traditional "ermanic society, to vocaliAe a thought is
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to ma'e that thought part of the fabric of reality, altering reality accordingly E perhaps not absolutely, but in some important measure.
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!ach of the runes represents a phoneme E the smallest unit of sound in a language, such as ;t,< ;s,< ;r,< etc. E and as such is a transposition of a phoneme into a visual form.

Most modern linguists ta'e it for granted that the relationship between the signified :the concrete reality referred to by a word= and the signifier :the sounds used to vocaliAe that word= is arbitrary.
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Cowever, a minority of linguists embrace an opposing theory 'nown as ;phonosemantics:< the

idea that there is, in fact, a meaningful connection between the sounds that ma'e up a word and the word9s meaning. To put this another way, the phoneme itself carries an inherent meaning. The meaning of the word ;thorn,< for e2ample, derives in large part from the combined meaning of the phonemes ;th,< ;o,< ;r,< and ;n.< The phonosemantic view of language is in agreement with the traditional northern !uropean view, where ;words create reality, not the other way around.< The runes, as transpositions of phonemes, bring the inherent creative powers of speech into a visual medium. We9ve already noted that the word ;rune< means ;letter< only secondarily, and that its primary meaning is ;secret< or ;mystery< E the mysterious animistic power carried by the phoneme itself. We must also remember the ordeal Odin undertoo' in order to discover the runes E no one would hang from a tree without food or water for nine days and nights, ritually wounded by his own spear, in order to obtain a set of arbitrary signifiers. With the runes, the phonosemantic perspective ta'es on an additional layer of significance. 1ot only is the relationship between the definition of a word and the phonemes that comprise it inherently meaningful E the relationship between a phoneme and its graphic representation is inherently meaningful as well. Thus, the runes were not only a means of fostering communication between two or more humans. Heing intrinsically meaningful symbols that could be read and understood by at least some nonhuman beings, they could facilitate communication between human'ind and the invisible powers who animate the visible world, providing the basis for a plethora of magical acts. In the verses from the +,lusp% >uoted above, we see that the carving of runes is one of the primary means by which the 1orns establish the initial framewor' of the destinyof all beings :the other most often-noted method being ea!ing=. "iven that the ability to alter the course of destiny is one of the central concerns of traditional "ermanic magic, it should come as no surprise that the runes, as an e2tremely potent means of redirecting destiny, and as inherently meaningful symbols, were thereby inherently magical by their very nature. This is a controversial statement to ma'e nowadays, since some scholars insist that, while the runes may have sometimes been used for magical purposes, they were not, in and of themselves, magical. Hut consider the following episode from 3gil0s )aga. While traveling, !gil eats a meal with a farmer whose house is on the vi'ing9s route. The farmer9s daughter is dangerously ill, and he as's !gil for help. When !gil e2amines the girl9s bed, he finds a whalebone with runes carved on it. The farmer

e2plains to !gil that these runes were carved by the son of a local farmer E presumably an ignorant, illiterate person whose 'nowledge of the runes could have only been flimsy at best. !gil, being a master of runic lore, readily discerns that this inscription is the cause of the girl9s woes. ?fter destroying the inscription by scraping the runes off into the fire and burning the whalebone itself :I=, !gil carves a different message in different runes so as to counteract the malignancy of the earlier writing. ?fter this has been accomplished, the girl recovers.
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We can see from this incident that the heathen northern !uropeans made a sharp distinction between the powers of the runes themselves, and the uses to which they were put. While the body of surviving runic inscriptions and literary descriptions of their use definitely suggest that the runes were sometimes put to profane, silly, andJor ignorant purposes, the "ddas and sagas ma'e it abundantly
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clear that the signs themselves do possess immanent magical attributes that wor' in particular ways regardless of the intended uses to which they9re put by humans.

The Meanings of the Runes

Transj (SM5) Runestone (photo by Berig)

This page is the fourth part of a four-part article on the runes. The other three parts are: Part I: Introduction Part II: The Origins of the Runes Part III: Runic Philosophy and Magic This section provides the sign, name, phoneme, and short description of the meaning of each of the twenty-four runes that comprise the !lder Buthar'. The given meanings are based on the ,une 8oems

and other te2tual evidence e2clusively. Where our present 'nowledge isn9t e2tensive enough to give an e2planation of which one can be reasonably certain, this is noted and the meaning is left une2plained or only partially e2plained. This article is hardly the place for esoteric speculations, which have been avoided. :If you9re interested in going beyond the te2tual evidence and using less academically acceptable means of discerning other, perhaps deeper meanings of the runes, I9m all for that, but you have to do that yourself. Ki'e Bight lub, the first rule of practicing magic is that you don9t tal' about your magical practices. 1ot incidentally, that9s why the ,une 8oems themselves are >uite cryptic and vague.=

1ame: Behu, ;cattle.< 8honeme: B. Meaning: wealth.

1ame: DruA, ;aurochs.< 8honeme: D :long andJor short=. Meaning: strength of will.

1ame: ThurisaA, ;#iant.< 8honeme: Th :both soft and hard=. Meaning: danger, suffering.

1ame: ?nsuA, ;an $esir god.< 8honeme: ? :long andJor short=. Meaning: prosperity, vitality.

1ame: ,aidho, ;Lourney on horsebac'.< 8honeme: ,. Meaning: movement, wor', growth.

1ame: 4aunan, ;ulcer.< 8honeme: 4. Meaning: mortality, pain.

1ame: "ebo, ;gift.< 8honeme: ". Meaning: generosity.

1ame: WunLo, ;Loy.< 8honeme: W. Meaning: Loy, ecstasy.

1ame:CagalaA, ;hail.< 8honeme: C. Meaning: destruction, chaos.

1ame: 1audhiA, ;need.< 8honeme: 1. Meaning: need, unfulfilled desire.

1ame: IsaA, ;ice.< 8honeme: I :long andJor short=. Meaning: un'own :the rune poems are ambiguous and contradictory=.

1ame: Mera, ;year.< 8honeme: "ermanic M, modern !nglish N. Meaning: harvest, reward.

1ame: !ihwaA, ;yew.< 8honeme: I pronounced li'e ;!ye.< Meaning: strength, stability.

1ame: un'nown. 8honeme: 8. Meaning: un'nown.

1ame: un'nown :the rune poems are contradictory=. 8honeme: O. Meaning: protection from enemies, defense of that which one loves.

1ame: 0owilo, ;sun.< 8honeme: 0. Meaning: success, solace.

1ame: TiwaA, ;the god Ti a%.< 8honeme: T. Meaning: victory, honor.

1ame: Her'anan, ;birch.< 8honeme: H. Meaning: fertility, growth, sustenance.

1ame: !hwaA, ;horse.< 8honeme: ! :long andJor short=. Meaning: trust, faith, companionship.

1ame: MannaA, ;man.< 8honeme: M. Meaning: augmentation, support.

1ame: KaguA. 8honeme: K. Meaning: formlessness, chaos, potentiality, the un'nown.

1ame: IngwaA, ;the god Ing a%.< 8honeme: 1g. Meaning: fertiliAation, the beginning of something, the actualiAation of potential.

1ame: Othalan, ;inheritance.< 8honeme: O :long andJor short=. Meaning: inheritance, heritage, tradition, nobility.

1ame: .agaA, ;day.< 8honeme: .. Meaning: hope, happiness.