Did runes come from Odin?
It is said that the Futhark runes were gifted to us by Odin, who had to sacrifice himself on the tree Yggdrasil in order to obtain their mystic sacred knowledge. However, it does beg the question, who's the one saying it? Answering this question for myself took me down quite a lot of paths, and now I'd like to be your tour guide as I retrace those steps.
So today on The Art of Divination Podcast, we are going to explore the Futhark runes. We're going to talk about their history and some of the ways that they've been brought into the modern divination arts, and we're going to try to respectfully cut through the misinformation and get to what's really going on with them.
And then from there, answer the most important question: why is this important? So sit back, relax, and join us as we explore the art of divination.
A warning about misinformation
Welcome to The Art of Divination Podcast presented by Artisan Tarot. I'm your host, Z. Mann Zilla.
On this episode, we'll be discussing Divination with Futhark runes. Now, I'd like to go ahead and start this episode out by giving a huge shout-out to my friend Selv, who was very helpful in helping me to research this episode. Now, if you're no stranger to these podcasts, you'll know that there is a lot of misinformation that I am well aware of when it comes to the divination arts.
And I even alluded to some of the misinformation in previous episodes when it comes to rune casting. But it wasn't until I talked to my friend Selv when I discovered just how much misinformation is out there. And I don't honestly think I can stick all of that in a single 30-minute episode and make it listenable or comprehensible in any way.
So I just want to say off the bat that as you're listening to this, realize that what I'm not giving you here is a detailed description of every single little thing that's true versus false about reading the Futhark runes. What I do hope to do here is, first off, give you a place to get started with your own research. And again, your own research is going to be important because, as I've always said about every divination system, it has to mean something to you. And it's going to mean a lot more if you're the one putting in the footwork to fully understand what it is you're reading for other people. However, this is also going to be a way of showing you that there is still value in the information that we have.
And not just in the particular area of reading Futhark runes, but reading in general. And by that, of course, I mean reading in the divination sense, but when it comes to Futhark runes, we also have to remember that reading really does mean reading.
The runes began as an alphabet
Now it should come as no surprise that the Futhark rune started as a system of writing, an alphabet, if you will, which in itself is interesting because the word alphabet derives from the words aleph-bet, which are the two first letters of the Hebrew alphabet. And on that front, it actually has something in common with Futhark, because the word Futhark is itself derived from the first six letters in its writing system. Think of it as basically the same reason we call it a QWERTY keyboard.
But this system of writing first appeared during the Proto-Norse period, roughly 2nd to 8th century. This was a written transcription of the phonemes that were used by the people living in the Scandinavia and northern Germany area at the time. And most important to the distinction here, this was pre-Viking times.
Elder Futhark
Now, one of the things I think is the most interesting about Elder Futhark is the reason why the letters are shaped the way they are. They are using very straight lines only in you know vertical or diagonal. And the reason why is because it actually made the letters easier to engrave on a number of surfaces, among those, including wood, metal, and stone.
Now, when we're talking about the Elder Futhark, what we have to remember here is that a lot of what we know about them today we don't actually know. It's actually derived and extrapolated from a lot of later works. A lot of the meaning of Elder Futhark, you know, how it was pronounced, how it was used, things of that nature is lost to time.
What the runestones actually say
A good deal of their legacy and their appearances in modern times have to do with how they get found. It is still common in certain parts of Scandinavia for you to be digging in your yard and find a runestone. Furthermore, a great deal of the runestones that we have found containing Elder Futhark nowadays are actually memorials to sons who went on a voyage and didn't come home. Or graffiti on a wall just saying, I was here.
And in some cases, transcriptions are found to have just been somebody's writing practice. However, because of a lot of the lack of information we had about what they were doing with their language at the time and sort of the different ways it was used as compared to, say, Younger Futhark, which we'll get into in a bit.
Well, the imagination has a way of filling in the blanks with mysticism. Like, oh look, this was written in the form of a poem that rhymes. It must be a spell. Which isn't to say that there hasn't been some historical attributions of their use in magic.
The Poetic Edda
I think the big one that is cited is the Poetic Edda, which show how they were used in magic spells for healing or protection. Of course, by bringing that up, I'm skipping ahead a bit because the Poetic Edda were written much later than this. Most of them come from the Codex Regius, which was written somewhere around the 13th century. And more important to the story, they were collected poems translated and kept around by Christian monks. And a keen eye may be able to see some likely liberties that were taken with those translations.
But what they do represent is a collection of Norse mythology that is particular to that era and can be very helpful in kind of trying to understand where this information comes from. It's not nothing, but it is important to remember that it's a biased source. Besides, it might interest you to know that the Poetic Edda don't really go into any sort of detail of how the runes were used for divinatory purposes. Again, they're being described as being used for healing, protection, binding spells, things of this nature, but that's not divination, that's a totally different thing.
Tacitus and the casting of lots
In truth, if you're looking for a real-life citation or anything close to it that can be cited as saying, oh, the runes were used for divination, you have to look at a text called Germania, which was written in the first century by Tacitus, which you might notice is also not a Scandinavian name.
But the book, which wrote about Proto-Germanic and Proto-Norse cultures, contained a single passage making reference to divination. I'm going to read it to you verbatim. They cut off a branch from a nut-bearing tree and slice it into strips. These they mark with different signs and throw them randomly onto a white cloth. Then the state's priest, if the consultation is a public one, or the father of the family, if it is private, after praying to the gods and keeping his eyes turned to heaven, picks up three strips one at a time and reads their meaning from the signs previously scored upon them.
Now, two things I notice when I read this, the first being that at no point in this is it mentioned that the marks are actually Futhark runes, and second, this is basically the casting of lots. Now, we mentioned in the Randomness Without Cards episodes how the casting of lots or cleromancy was pretty common in a lot of cultures, and why shouldn't it be is really the simplest form of divination.
But it still begs the question: were the Futhark runes the marks being used in this case, or was it something else? There's no clear answer here. And clear answers aren't likely to be forthcoming because almost all knowledge of the Elder Futhark was lost until about 1865 when Norwegian scholar Sophus Bugge discovered and deciphered what he could from the information that he had.
Futhorc and Younger Futhark
But of course, by this time, other writing systems based on the Futhark had already emerged. First of all, there was the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, which extended the alphabet quite a bit. It's you know anywhere from 28 to 34 symbols, depending on which ones you've decided count. And this was the system of runes that was more likely to be used by Christian monks that were transcribing things from that era or just writing in the local language. The other writing system was known as Younger Futhark, and that arose alongside Old Norse as a language.
Now, this was a more simplified version of the Futhark, and it only had 16 shapes, and there were even variations within specific regions on what those shapes actually looked like. But it was Younger Futhark that was in use during the Viking period. Now, all three of these writing systems have very interesting and fascinating histories, and I invite you to go explore them in depth, especially if you're interested in getting into rune casting.
But the general summary here is that with a lot of rune casting techniques, they always draw from Elder Futhark, the system with the 24 symbols. And you know what the math checks out? It's the system that has 24 letters as opposed to 16. It's also the one most removed from the Christian interventions that sort of happened later, giving rise to things like Anglo-Saxon Futhorc and Christian takes on Norse mythology.
But again, it also comes back to the fact that when there's no information about them, then there's also no information to dispute your claims. Something that latter-day authors like Ralph Blum and Stephen Flowers took a lot of advantage of. I had to segue away from the history section for this bit because a lot of what we understand about rune casting as a divination art is actually quite contemporary. You might even remember that I've joked in the past that the video game Donkey Kong is technically older than most of the methods people use for reading the runes nowadays.
Ralph Blum's Book of Runes
Ralph Blum published his book The Book of Runes in 1982. It was subtitled A Handbook for the Use of an Ancient Oracle, and it came with a small bag of round chalky tiles with runes stamped on them, 25 of them to be exact. I own a bag of these, and the nicest thing I can say about them is they will definitely make you informed on what you're looking for when you buy your next set of runes. The texture's not pleasant. The book contains all the sort of things you would expect a guidebook to contain, the meanings of the runes, how to read them, that sort of thing.
Borrowed techniques
However, when I was reading this book, a couple of things leapt out at me. The first being that in the section where he's supposed to be talking about the techniques for reading, he goes on at length about how other people read them. And furthermore, every technique he brings up really just looks like other techniques that already exist.
For example, he describes a process where somebody throws a bunch of what he calls runes in the air, but he mentions that like there's other shapes in there, and then they land on a circle. And I'm looking at this and going, this is osteomancy. He also brings up an example at one point of seeing a rune out in nature and how it applied to a thing that he was already doing. And I'm looking at that and that's just portentia. That's the study of inanimate nature and environment and seeing symbols in it.
In fact, the video game Senua's Sacrifice uses it as a game mechanic. Now, mind you, there's nothing wrong with this, but what was standing out for me was that, you know, when you're writing a book about reading the runes, I feel like there has to be an original contribution in all of this, right? And Blum eventually comes around to giving his. The thing is that what he gives, mechanically speaking, is the method for reading tarot. He describes the meanings for each one, and we'll get into that in a minute, but then explains how to read them both upright and reversed. The problem with this is that over a third of Elder Futhark runes read the same upright and upside down.
So it's pretty evident to anybody with knowledgeable eyes that Blum is cribbing his notes from other systems, and this is not a huge problem unless you are the primary source that everybody's going to for what is allegedly this ancient art of rune casting. And that's technically not even the worst of it.
Stephen Flowers
We have to get into the work of Stephen Flowers, who wrote under the name Edred Thorsson. And, warning, it's gonna get a little dicey here. Flowers was writing his work around the same time. In fact, I believe Blum only beat him by about a year or two. But while Blum was sort of poking around in areas that were technically outside of his wheelhouse, Stephen Flowers' ideas were coming from a more experienced place.
Now I will point out that Flowers' work was very strong from the historical standpoint. He was very clear on his history and very accurate. Unlike Blum, Flowers' ideas were coming from the actual culture which was being used. His history was well established, it was well researched, and very well eloquated. When it comes to the history of the Futhark Runes, you can count on the work of Stephen Flowers in that aspect. Where we run into a problem is that a lot of his knowledge is carrying some unfortunate philosophical baggage. Starting in the 1970s and throughout most of his life, Stephen Flowers was what was known as a folkish heathen.
This was a form of heathenism that was based around the idea that you absolutely must be descended from ancient Germanic populations in order to worship the old Norse gods. Taken at face value, this is not a problem. People have closed practices. However, this is contextualized by some of his far-right political associations. He's been an outspoken supporter of Nouvelle Droite, which is the far-right movement in France, and he's a known associate of Michael J. Moynihan, whose own far-right associations are a lot less ambiguous. The result being that any philosophical contribution that Flowers is making to the rune reading discourse, well, it carries the baggage of those associations.
Why the baggage matters
But I tell all of you that to tell you this, which is that when you are looking for information about rune casting, the lion's share of what you're gonna find, especially anything that's been written contemporarily, one of these two folks touched it. One of whom was cribbing notes from pre-existing systems from other cultures, and the other for whom was using as a sort of religious form of national pride.
And I feel it's very responsible to bring all of this up, not because I want to discourage people from using the runes. There's no problem with using the runes in and of themselves. The thing is that being aware of this baggage is what helps you get to the good stuff, the real truth of the matter.
Because again, a lot of these problematic elements have to do with contemporary modern inclusions that don't even come from the history of the runes themselves. The key to symbolism is what it means to the reader and to the querent. And when it comes to Futhark, be it elder, younger, whichever one you're using, at the end of the day, they're just letters. And a letter is a shape that helps you convey a meaning. Which, on that note, let's go ahead and go over some divination techniques that work well with runes.
Where the good meanings come from
So it may sound so far like I'm implying there's no legitimacy whatsoever to any of the information we have about rune casting. The thing is that's not true. I've spent a lot of time focusing on a lot of the false sources of information and why it's false, but that is to make sure you understand why you need to know what to look out for. The thing is, there are just as many good sources of information about what the runes could mean in your readings.
The mnemonic poems
And probably the best one is going to be three mnemonic poems that were written during the Viking era. And by mnemonic poem, what I mean is think of all the different ways we teach letters to kids, right? A is for Apple, B is for bear, that sort of thing. Younger Futhark had an equivalent of this, a series of poems that read almost like riddles.
Now, the original texts are medieval and need to be translated to really be fully understood. There are sites out there, including www.norserunes.com, that have English translations available of them. However, for purposes of what they're trying to do, they give the literal translation of those poems and don't try to dress them up poetically in any sort of way.
But what these poems do is they give us meanings for the runes. Take, for example, the rune Thurisaz, which talks about misfortune and sickness. I mean, that's a pretty valid read right then and there, right? You don't necessarily need to add more to it. Blum incidentally assigned this one to Thor and said it meant gateway. Just a fun fact. Don't bother memorizing it. Like most systems, it has a rune that represents the sun.
So if you are practiced in any system that's got a sun in it, and if you're listening to this on www.artisantarot.com, you probably are, then that symbolism should come naturally to you as well. Now, I certainly don't want to walk you hand in hand through each and every one of the runes here. First off, because I know my friend Selv is going to be listening to this, and I know I'm gonna butcher a lot of the pronunciations I probably already did. And I'd still like to be invited to his family cookouts.
But all of this is to say that there are plenty of great sources of meaning that you can draw from, specifically from their own history. And while the mystical explanations and the mythological explanations are certainly more fun and more fanciful, the truth is that the truth is pretty interesting too. The best part is you can have both. And let's talk about how. I mean, I should, because it's not like I haven't used runes in my practice before, both actual Futhark runes and their variations.
The drawbacks
But before I talk it up any more than I already have, why don't we go ahead and just go over some of the quick cons that you should be looking out for here? One, we already talked about the folkish heathen movement and all of its derivatives. That is a stigma that you're going to need to be aware of and be able to contextualize with your own knowledge of Scandinavian history. You'll also want to be aware of all the ways that it has been mystified, which is no stranger to anybody that's ever studied Hebrew and then turned around and saw the aleph-bet being used by the Golden Dawn as some sort of esoteric hermetic symbolism. And of course, the usual problems you're gonna have with anything that's based off of an abstract, namely, you know, if somebody's expecting pretty pictures, then you know, rune stones aren't gonna quite fill that bill. But that's a very contextual problem, and you've probably already got plenty of decks of cards to solve it.
A smaller data set, and your bone bag
What I consider the biggest challenge to get over is the smaller data set. Even, you know, larger sets of runes have 25 symbols in them if you're counting the blank rune, and you shouldn't. It's ahistorical in every sense of the term. But the 24 proper runes of Futhark represent one of the smaller data sets. It's even smaller than the Lenormand, which has 36 cards. The thing is that a smaller data set can prove to be an advantage. We talked earlier about how one of the methods that Blum brought up in his book very closely resembled Osteomancy, and that's because you can do a very similar thing with runestones.
It is to your advantage to have smaller objects in a bone bag, right? You know, you want dice, you want little coins, little bones, things of that nature. You don't want anything too big. The nice thing about runestones is that you can make them as big or as small as you need to. They tend to be made out of durable material. The runes are created in such a way that they're very easy to carve into stuff. We discussed that advantage earlier. And you can even carve runes into the objects in your osteomancy bag, so you can have runes on your bones.
So some working knowledge with Futhark runes definitely lends itself to a greater versatility and a greater spice that you can add not just to a craft focused on them, but to your other crafts as well.
Seeing runes in the environment
The other thing I don't want to discount entirely from Blum's book was his use of portentia to see runes in the environment. I think that's a really interesting thing to explore. I am a big fan of observational divination. Like, that's something that I do all the time. Whenever I go to visit Dr. Jeremy out in Seattle, or at least when I used to, I used to have a technique where I would notice things along the way, and we would discuss what they could mean from a divinatory standpoint. Again, runes being based on very simple shapes lend themselves very easily to portentia.
Adapting them respectfully
Also, and I think this is the one that both Blum and Flowers are going to have to agree with me on this one, whether they like it or not, a huge potential for adaptation. As there is no inherent mysticism in runes themselves, a familiarity with them means that you can adapt them to things that are more meaningful to you. And remember, what you're dealing with here is a written language. There's already plenty of divination tools that have English letters all over them, like oracle decks.
But of course, there's also the implied and carried meanings. Again, when you're using Futhark runes, you're also conjuring elements of Norse mythology. And considering I know multiple people who call upon Norse figures as intercessors in their own beliefs, this is not inconsiderable at all. That said, and this does come from my friend Selv, if you are looking for a way to adapt in a respectful way, then it's probably better to derive your practice from one of the more contemporary systems of Futhark. Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, for example, can have up to 34 symbols in it.
Now, first off, that's gonna mean a lot more possibilities from your data set, but also you're gonna have an easier time finding resources on how to actually read in it. So there's lots of ways to explore Futhark in a responsible and a respectful way.
The feel of the stones
As for how to use the stones, I mean, technique-wise, again, they're pretty open to just about any technique you care to apply to them, so long as you familiarize yourself with some meanings that mean something to you. But the main reason I really enjoy using runes of any sort is just the tactile sensation of it. Runestones are satisfyingly heavy, and if you get a good set of runestones, they also have a really nice weighty texture to them. They tend to be like very smooth and cold, and you know, they just feel good to use. I love systems that give me something weighty to play with.
So if you're wondering why I still risk using the stones no matter what, that's the main reason why. Like there are just few systems as viscerally satisfying. There's a number of rune kits that are put out by Lo Scarabeo that make the runes out of some really interesting stones, like blue quartz, amethyst. I had one that was made from green aventurine, which was really nice. And sensation-wise, it's just great to listen to them clack together in their bag as you're just sort of rolling them around and asking your question. They're really fun.
But wood is also another popular material that's used for runes. A nice thing about those is usually they tend to be the same consistent size and shape, and they do make a satisfying clack noise. I've seen sets that make the runes out of copper, which looks really neat. I haven't gotten my hands on one yet to really test it out, but I imagine that that's gonna be just as much fun to clink around. And I've seen cards that have the runes on them as well. My personal belief on that one is if you're gonna go all in on reading runes, you know, go all in with the tactile sensation. Like get something that is stone or wood or you know, something you can clack around in a bag.
I think that's a fun way to get started with runes. There are so many other systems that rely on cards. Why not have one that just has a fun, weighty element to it? You can also find dice sets that have runes on them as well, another application. Again, a very versatile set of symbols there that also have like those nice mystical connotations that we love to have with our divination tools.
Demystify it a little
All in all, rune-based divination being one of those systems that's in current circulation, is unique in that it's one of the few systems that I'm actually gonna recommend that you demystify it a little for yourself. And how weird is that? How weird is it to say, oh, you know, take your divination tool and suck all of the mystic fun out of it, right?
But here's what's most interesting about that. Even after knowing what I know now, which is a lot more than I knew even a couple days ago about runes, again, thank you, Selv. Knowing what I know now and having a lot of that mystical understanding pulled away and revealed for you know the history of what has happened here, I've come away not just with a greater appreciation of how we even ended up with this history in the first place, and you know, who had to carry that history to us and what they were doing with the ball as they were carrying it, you know, that sort of thing. Even little things like knowing that many of the inscriptions that we have from Elder Futhark were, you know, gravestones or you know, just a little message that was written on an arrowhead, something like that, right?
Nothing really magical about its use. And yet its simple, elegant design, you know, just these straight and diagonal lines used to convey these meanings, that carries ancient weight of history just in its very appearance. Futhark runes accomplished something that a lot of symbolism doesn't for me, which is that once I know where it comes from, I still look at it and I go, Yeah, but this still feels thousands of years old.
Which is funny because of all the writing systems that end up getting roped into the divination arts in one form or another, it's actually one of the earliest, even by Elder Futhark standards, it is one of the youngest languages that gets a lot of rotation in the divination arts, and yet it just feels the oldest. And how many times have we talked about the kayfabe of divination, the conjuring of Kavanah to get yourself into that mindset where you're ready to read? Somehow, the Elder Futhark runes, at least for me, just do that so effortlessly.
So ultimately, I would recommend rune reading as a divination art for everybody to try out at least once. The very act of taking it up is itself very enriching because you're gonna need to learn actual history to use it responsibly. Engaging with them is gonna exercise both high brain and low brain functions of your creativity and your tapping into the knowledge that you need to tap into in order to give advice with them. And really, the best reason of all, a lot of great excuses to play with some cool rocks.
Closing and where to find us
This has been The Art of Divination Podcast, presented by Artisan Tarot, publishers of both historical and modern tarot decks, and your one-stop shop for all things metaphysical. Look for many of the items we discussed today at www.artisantarot.com.
As for myself, I've been Z. Mann Zilla, and you can find more about me at www.Pandangit.com. I wish you all the best of luck on your own divination journeys, happy reading, and thank you for your time.
