Divination: Runes - Lesson 2: History

Runes are the ancient written language of the Nordic and Teutonic people. It is believed that they were used for divination. This is an inconclusive. Tacitus reported to Rome that he watched a Germanic tribe 'casting lots' but it was not written if it was runes that the person Tacitus was observing carved into the sticks or some other glyph. In the folk magic practices of the region where the Nordic peoples lived during the pre-christian era, runes pop up on occasion as a divination tool.

It is really with the modern era that runes have been used for divination with any certainty. I have struggled to find conclusive evidence as to where the origination point is of modern rune reading. In the early 1990s, Ralph Blum put out his The Book of Runes. The book had a favorable response and, in my opinion, it contributed to the popularity of rune reading after the turn of the millennium. Almost all of the books about runes and the many websites have the same base set of applied meanings for the elder Futhorc. These meanings are derived from the rune poems that are still existent in medieval texts. It suggests that runes did have a use in divination but it is equally likely that these were rhymes to help the illiterate learn the letters. It is unclear.

The runes given by name below (as I don't have the font to produce the image for each glyph) are presented with the set of meanings as per a handwritten slip of paper that came with my first set of runes.

Feho: possessions - that which is vital, community, wealth.
Ur: strength - physical endurance
Thorn: gateway - giants / chaos
Os: signals - gods / source of divine utterance
Rad: journey - refers to the soul after death, a journey
Ken: opening - torch, skiff, associated with Nerthus (death goddess)
Gyfu: partnership - a gift from the gods to loyal followers
Wynn: joy - absence of sorrow and suffering
Hoel: disruption - natural forces that damage
Nyd: constraint - the cause for human suffering, lessons, hardship
Isa: standstill - ice, freezing, Yimir the frost giant born of ice
Ger: harvest - a fruitful year
Eoh: defense - averting powers
Poerdh: initiation - a secret matter, rune of mystery
Eolh: protection - defense / protection
Sighel: wholeness - sun
Tyr: warrior - a guiding planet or star, or victory in battle*
Boerc: growth - rebirth, new life
Ehwis: movement - associated with the course of the sun
Manu: the self - the human race, man
Lagu: flow - sea, water, fertility source
Ing: fertility - Ing, the legendary hero, later a God*
Odel: breakthrough - prosperity and fruitfulness
Doerg: retreat - property or an inherited posession

There was also a blank rune that was considered the unknowable or the rune of destiny. I don't really use blank runes anymore. I keep it in the set because it does on occasion prove useful in weird ways. But my method of reading runes is unorthodox. The runes with an asterisk beside them are actually proper names of deities within Norse mythology. I find it curious that the person who gave me the rune set used the Anglo-Saxon names for the Elder Futhorc. They are different, slightly, from the Norse names that we do know. Lagu, for example, is also known as Laguz and Ing is also known as Ingwar or Ingwaz/Ingwas. But the above list is really the basis of modern rune interpretation.