8/13/2019 The Origins of the Runes

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-origins-of-the-runes 1/9

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.#$%#&% !arlier "ermanic sacred symbols, such as those

 preserved in northern !uropean petroglyphs, were also li'ely influential in the development of the

script.#(%#)*%

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

the entire futhar', in order, is that on the 4ylver stone from "otland, 0weden, which dates to roughly

5** !.#)6%

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

8/13/2019 The Origins of the Runes

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-origins-of-the-runes 2/9

encountered Italic writing firsthand during campaigns amongst their southerly neighbors.#)7% This

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 *Woðanaz , 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.#)5%Whether the runes and the cult of

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

wors, 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 andmagic 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%

8/13/2019 The Origins of the Runes

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-origins-of-the-runes 3/9

8/13/2019 The Origins of the Runes

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-origins-of-the-runes 4/9

The Möjbro 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.<#6*% This is, in an important sense, an

anticipation of the philosophy of language advanced by the "erman philosopher Martin Ceidegger in

his seminal essay 2anguage. 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.#6)%

 In traditional "ermanic society, to vocaliAe a thought isto ma'e that thought part of the fabric of reality, altering reality accordingly E perhaps not absolutely,

 but in some important measure.#66%

!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.

8/13/2019 The Origins of the Runes

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-origins-of-the-runes 5/9

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. #67%#65%

#6+% 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 waterfor 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

8/13/2019 The Origins of the Runes

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-origins-of-the-runes 6/9

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 =,

!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. #63%

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,#6$% the "ddas and sagas ma'e it abundantly

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

Transjö (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

8/13/2019 The Origins of the Runes

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-origins-of-the-runes 7/9

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.

8/13/2019 The Origins of the Runes

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-origins-of-the-runes 8/9

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

ambiguous and contradictory=.

 1ame: era, ;year.< 8honeme: "ermanic , 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: . Meaning: protection from

enemies, defense of that which one loves.

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

 1ame: TiwaA, ;the god Tia%.< 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 Inga%.< 8honeme: 1g. Meaning: fertiliAation, the beginning of

something, the actualiAation of potential.

8/13/2019 The Origins of the Runes

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-origins-of-the-runes 9/9

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

heritage, tradition, nobility.

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