by Sue Bluze

Created on: February 05, 2007   Last Updated: May 08, 2007

Many people until quite recently had never heard of Runes unless they are of Scandinavian descent or are interested in the occult, but with the popularity of Lord of the Rings film trilogy and the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien this has become less so.

Runes or more correctly the Runic script are an ancient alphabet, each of whose letters possessed a meaningful name and a pronounceable sound. Runes are most associated with the Vikings, but are also common within Anglo-Saxon and other Germanic cultures and also feature heavily in the pictographs left behind by the Pict's.

In Viking mythology Odin received the runes after hanging on the Yggdrasil [the world tree] for nine nights wounded by his own blade. The description of how this came about can be found in "The Speech of the High One" from the old Norse The Poetic Edda AD1200.

"The Speech of the High One"
I Know I hung on that windy tree,
Swung there for nine long nights
Wounded by my own blade
Bloodied for Odin
Myself and offering to Myself
Bound to the tree
That no man knows
Whither the roots of it run.

None gave me bread
None gave me drink
Down to the deepest depths I peered
Until I spied the Runes
With a roaring cry I seized them up
Then dizzy and fainting I fell.

Well-being I won
And wisdom too.
From a word to a word
I was led to a word.
From a deed to another deed.

Older than the new testament runes were last in regular use in Iceland in the Middle Ages. The knowledge of how the Vikings used the wisdom of the Runes is largely lost apart from the Viking Saga which contain fragments of Runic law, some interpretations and the Runes themselves.

The influence of the Runes in the Middle Ages was considerable, Anglo-Saxon High Chieftains would meet in a conclave and consult the Runes. Eight centuries previous to this when Herodotus travels in the area around the Black Sea he encountered tribesmen who would cast sticks into the air and then "read" them where they fell, in the same way that Runes would be read.

The Rune Masters and Mistresses were consulted on every facet of life, from the sacred to the practical, including the weather, the tides, crops, love, healing, fertility, birth and death. the Runic symbol's were often used for decoration on amulets and jewelery are well as on cups and weapons and over the door lintels and the prows of the feared Viking long-ships.

Runes were made of any type of material, they could be twigs or stones or pottery, bone, shells, leather or metal. Each Runic Master would either make their own or use those passed down through the family. The Runes were divided into three lots of eight runes with special links to the Norse Gods Freyr, Hagal and Tyr plus a blank rune making a total of twenty five runes.

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