Let’s Talk About the Runes

Starting the year off right!

Happy New Year and welcome back to Uglubjörn Blog! I want to start the year off right by talking about an important subject: the runes. 

I’m sure that many of my readers are very familiar with a lot of the concepts and references that I will be sharing, probably even more so than I am; however, I hope that you will still find value in this post as I share my perspective and experience with the runes so far. 

Most of my study has been through watching YouTubers like Arith Harger talk about the runes and their interpretations, and a book called Runes for Beginners by Lisa Chamberlain. I would very much like to expand my knowledge as I continue to ponder and work with the runes in my practice, so to my experienced and knowledgeable readers, please don’t hesitate to hit me up with recommendations and advice.

The runic alphabet that I work with is called the Elder Futhark. It’s one of the more commonly used runic alphabets in Neo-Pagan circles (at least that I’m aware of) and it consists of 24 runes total. 

Because there are 24 runes, the alphabet is commonly divided into 3 groups of 8 called aetts. The name Futhark is actually the first 6 characters of the first aett spelled out.

The following is an illustration of the 3 aetts from Lisa Chamberlain’s Runes for Beginners:

Historically and archaeologically, we don’t know how or to what extent the runes were used in religious and magical contexts. It is heavily implied in the mythology though that the runes possess magical powers that can be used when they are understood and invoked correctly. 

Am I under the impression that if I study the runes hard enough one day I’ll become a fifth-level spell-casting D&D character that can cast fireball? Of course not. There is one thing that does sort of relate to D&D and that is the idea of spell-casting focuses and components. In D&D rules, spell casting requires different components including material, verbal, and somatic. Most of the time if you have a spellcasting focus like a wand or an amulet you can ignore the material requirements, but say you are tied up and restrained, or under the effects of a silence spell, you might be limited in your ability to satisfy the somatic or verbal requirements for casting certain spells. 

Now bringing it back to pagan spirituality, I think that the runes can be used as material, verbal and somatic components in ritual. We can chant or sing the names of the runes. Another example is making the shapes of the runes with our bodies like Heilung does in the music video for their song Norupo. There’s also the act of drawing or carving the runes on objects and using rune inscribed objects as components of ritual.

The basic names, meanings, and interpretations that we have of the runes come from surviving literature called the rune poems originating in England, Norway, and Iceland. I see this as a starting point, and we all gain deeper understanding by pondering and meditating on their meanings, and discussing them with other people. Each rune easily deserves its own individual blog post, so I’m not going to get into specific runes here. 

My personal set of runes that I use for divination is simple. I bought a cheap set on etsy because I’m not a very artsy-crafty guy to be making my own. You should do whatever works for you, but for me personally, it was important that they were made from slices of tree branches. My reasoning for this comes from a passage in Tacitus’ Germania: 

“For divination and the casting of lots they have the highest possible regard. Their procedure in casting lots is uniform. They break off a branch of a fruit tree and slice it into strips; they mark these by certain signs and throw them, as random chance will have it, onto a white cloth. Then a state priest, if the consultation is a public one, or the father of the family, if it is private, prays to the gods and, gazing to the heavens, picks up three separate strips and reads their meaning from the marks scored on them.” 

We don’t know for sure if what Tacitus is describing here is actually rune readings, but it’s certainly not outside the realm of possibility. Even if Tacitus is talking about something other than runes, I think these kinds of descriptions from ancient texts are good inspirations for developing personal practices. Like it says in the passage I use a white cloth. It used to be a white rabbit pelt, but I made the mistake of leaving a lit tea-light candle on it, and the fur caught on fire! So now I use a regular white cloth that only comes out when I take out my rune set. 

I usually do my rune readings in sets of three as the previous passage describes, for past, present, and future. There are other methods out there but I prefer to keep things simple. Maybe someday when I have a little bit more confidence in my understanding of the meanings of the runes I will adventurously try out some other divination methods.

In the mythology, Odin famously discovers the runes:

“I know that I hung on a wind-battered tree nine long nights, pierced by a spear and given to Odin, myself to myself, on that tree whose roots grow in a place no one has ever see. No one gave me food, no one gave me drink. At the end I peered down, I took the runes - screaming, I took them - and then I fell.”

-Havamal: 138-139 (Jackson Crawford translation)

Odin is a very common deity to work with in learning the runes for this reason, but I think it’s important to work with multiple deities in learning and understanding the runes. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I worked primarily with Heimdall on my rune meditations, but there were times when Odin was involved. Although my interactions with her have been limited, I think Freyja is also a good deity to reach out to for help in understanding the meanings of the runes, especially those who are more drawn to working with goddesses. Freyja might also be someone to work with when trying to understand or invoke specific runes that have a strong feminine energy like I did when meditating on Berkana. I also had my first interaction with Freyr when meditating on Sowilo. I discovered my Fylgja (similar to a spirit animal, one of the parts of the self in Nordic spirituality) when meditating on Raidho. 

So studying, pondering, and implementing the runes in my spiritual practice has opened me up to a lot of important experiences that I did not expect like unexpected interactions with different deities and spiritual presences. When I finished my first round of meditations on the meaning of the runes I blessed my rune set by performing a ritual at the 2023 Ohio Ostara gathering with my friend Will of Central PA Pagan. Will came up with a chant that we led, and I played the drum. It was a very cool experience, particularly setting up the ritual space I found was my favorite part as I was very focused and had a really strong ecstatic feeling as we blessed the space and got ourselves into the ritual mindset. 

For several months, I carved each rune into a block of wood after each meditation was complete. I finished this endeavor during the Ohio Ostara gathering by meditating on and carving the last rune in the sequence: Othala. I placed the block along with my rune set in a designated spot for charging sacred objects during the rune ritual and then offered the block to Odin in the ritual fire later that night, which was an incredibly powerful experience. 

It was a culmination of several months of learning, meditation, and journaling. It taught me that the more powerful experiences are usually the ones that we put work into, because it provides more meaning and sincerity. It’s not very difficult to buy a bottle of whiskey and dump it out into a fire, and I’m not saying it’s wrong to do that, but my experience with learning the runes has taught me that it’s important to put some thought and preparation into rituals, especially if they’re meant to be significant. 

I know that I still have quite a bit to learn regarding the runes. I’m trying to work with them and learn about them in a format that is loosely based on Havamal stanza 144:

“Do you know how to write them?

Do you know how to read them?

Do you know how to paint them?

Do you know how to test them?

Do you know how to ask them?

Do you know how to bless them?

Do you know how to send them?

Do you know how to offer them?”

I already did the carving part with the block of wood, so now my main focus with the runes is doing rune readings. I still might carve another block as I go back and meditate on the individual meanings again, and I also want to paint my drum at some point. I also have a few runes already tattooed on my body. Ultimately, it’s not a fixed sequential structure, just a nice outline to help me focus my practice, and just because I carved one wooden block meditating through the runes one time doesn’t mean I have mastered rune carving by any means. I expect that my work with the runes will be a lifelong endeavor of learning. 

As I continue to meditate on the runes, I will be sharing some of my insights here on the blog. Initially, I thought that it might be cute to do 2 runes a month since there are 24 runes, but I don’t think I’m going to actually do that. Studying and pondering the runes is something that I don’t think should be rushed, and I don’t want this subject to take over other topics that I will want to discuss throughout the year. I also would prefer to have each rune be its own topic without being combined with another rune or another topic. 

So stay tuned as I continue to talk about the runes in the months to come, along with all my other ramblings. As always, thanks for reading!

Skal! 🍻