The Modern Witchcraft Guide to Runes: Your Complete Guide to the Divination Power of Runes

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Runic magic is often associated with Nordic or otherwise Germanic characters, Fantasy Counterpart Cultures thereof, and beings from Germanic mythology. Due to their shared association with northern Europe and the Norse, safe but undramatic reliability and contrast with flashy and active magic, it's very common for runes to also be extensively used by dwarves. MacLeod, Mindy; Mees, Bernard (2006). Runic Amulets and Magic Objects. Boydell Press. ISBN 1-84383-205-4. At The Well of Wyrd (1988) which was later reprinted under the title Runecaster’s Handbook: The Well of Wyrd. She goes on to give advice on the magical runes in seven further stanzas. In all instances, the runes are used for actual magic ( apotropaic or ability-enhancing spells) rather than for divination:

Magic Runes 101: A Beginners’ Guide to Learning Runic Magic Magic Runes 101: A Beginners’ Guide to Learning Runic Magic

Biór fori ec þer / brynþings apaldr! magni blandinn / oc megintíri; fullr er hann lioþa / oc licnstafa, godra galdra / oc gamanruna. In 2nd edition, runes can be etched into weapons and armor to give them magic properties, or even transferred from one item to another. Nevertheless, it has proven difficult to find unambiguous traces of runic "oracles": although Norse literature is full of references to runes, it nowhere contains specific instructions on divination. There are at least three sources on divination with rather vague descriptions that may, or may not, refer to runes: Tacitus's 1st-century Germania, Snorri Sturluson's 13th-century Ynglinga saga, and Rimbert's 9th-century Vita Ansgari.Saemarr þorsgoði (Peter Seymour), Produced during the 1980s, a tape recording "Runes" giving advice on the use and divination practice of runes, including theoretical Galdrar (chanting) of the rune names of the Elder Futhark for ritual use. As Proto-Germanic evolved into its later language groups, the words assigned to the runes and the sounds represented by the runes themselves began to diverge somewhat and each culture would create new runes, rename or rearrange its rune names slightly, or stop using obsolete runes completely, to accommodate these changes. Thus, the Anglo-Saxon futhorc has several runes peculiar to itself to represent diphthongs unique to (or at least prevalent in) the Anglo-Saxon dialect.

Magic Of Runes In Norse Mythology - NorseMythologist The Magic Of Runes In Norse Mythology - NorseMythologist

Modern authors like Ralph Blum sometimes include a "blank rune" in their sets. Some were to replace a lost rune, but according to Ralph Blum this was the god Odin's rune, the rune of the beginning and the end, representing "the divine in all human transactions". [15] Ralph Blum [ edit ] Dictionary of the Middle Ages (under preparation). Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 2007-06-23. A rune is a letter in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised purposes thereafter. In addition to representing a sound value (a phoneme), runes can be used to represent the concepts after which they are named ( ideographs). Scholars refer to instances of the latter as Begriffsrunen ('concept runes'). The Scandinavian variants are also known as futhark or fuþark (derived from their first six letters of the script: F, U, Þ, A, R, and K); the Anglo-Saxon variant is futhorc or fuþorc (due to sound-changes undergone in Old English by the names of those six letters). Other oft cited sources for the practice of runic [ dubious – discuss] divination are chapter 38 of Snorri Sturluson's Ynglinga Saga, where Granmar, the king of Södermanland, travels to the Temple at Uppsala for the seasonal blót. "There, the chips fell in a way that said that he would not live long" ( Féll honum þá svo spánn sem hann mundi eigi lengi lifa). [10]Main article: Elder Futhark Detail of the Elder Futhark inscription on a replica of one of the 5th-century AD Golden Horns of Gallehus found on Jutland, now Denmark Alu is a charm word appearing on numerous artifacts found in Central and Northern Europe dating from the Germanic Iron Age. The word is the most common of the early runic charm words and can appear either alone or as part of an apparent formula. The origin and meaning of the word are matters of dispute, though a general agreement exists among scholars that the word either represents amulet magic or is a metaphor (or metonym) for it. [4]

Runes: History, Meaning And Alphabet - NorseMythologist Norse Runes: History, Meaning And Alphabet - NorseMythologist

The Younger Futhark, also called Scandinavian Futhark, is a reduced form of the Elder Futhark, consisting of only 16 characters. The reduction correlates with phonetic changes when Proto-Norse evolved into Old Norse. They are found in Scandinavia and Viking Age settlements abroad, probably in use from the 9th century onward. They are divided into long-branch (Danish) and short-twig (Swedish and Norwegian) runes. The difference between the two versions is a matter of controversy. A general opinion is that the difference between them was functional (viz., the long-branch runes were used for documentation on stone, whereas the short-twig runes were in everyday use for private or official messages on wood).The Book of Runes: A Handbook for the Use of an Ancient Oracle: The Viking Runes (1982); revised 10th Anniversary Edition (1992); revised 25th Anniversary Edition (2007). Thus, the runes were not only a means of fostering communication between two or more humans. Being intrinsically meaningful symbols that could be read and understood by at least some nonhuman beings, they could facilitate communication between humankind and the invisible powers who animate the visible world, providing the basis for a plethora of magical acts. The Elder Futhark, used for writing Proto-Norse, consists of 24 runes that often are arranged in three groups of eight; each group is referred to as an ætt (Old Norse, meaning ' clan, group'). The earliest known sequential listing of the full set of 24 runes dates to approximately AD 400 and is found on the Kylver Stone in Gotland, Sweden.

Norse Runes and Magic: The Complete Guide (2023)

Charm words, such as auja, laþu, laukaʀ, and most commonly, alu, [34] appear on a number of Migration period Elder Futhark inscriptions as well as variants and abbreviations of them. Much speculation and study has been produced on the potential meaning of these inscriptions. Rhyming groups appear on some early bracteates that also may be magical in purpose, such as salusalu and luwatuwa. Further, an inscription on the Gummarp Runestone (500–700 AD) gives a cryptic inscription describing the use of three runic letters followed by the Elder Futhark f-rune written three times in succession. [35] In 5th edition, magical runes are predominately related to giants, with one Fighter archetype, the Rune Knight, drawing magical power via carving or marking appropriate runes on their weapons and armor. Mostly this manifests a them growing a size or two in battle, and giving unique abilities to the weapons and gear that carry the runes on them. The Armanen runes "revealed" to Guido von List in 1902 were employed for magical purposes in Germanic mysticism by authors such as Friedrich Bernhard Marby and Siegfried Adolf Kummer, and after World War II in a reformed "pansophical" system by Karl Spiesberger. More recently, Stephen Flowers, Adolf Schleipfer, Larry E. Camp and others also build on List's system. [ citation needed] The Finnish word runo, meaning 'poem', is an early borrowing from Proto-Germanic, [12] and the source of the term for rune, riimukirjain, meaning 'scratched letter'. [13] The root may also be found in the Baltic languages, where Lithuanian runoti means both 'to cut (with a knife)' and 'to speak'. [14] Old Kingdom: Charter Magic works by using Charter Marks, runic letters and pictograms, to manipulate the Charter and cause specific effects to happen. Charter Marks can be written, spoken, sung, or even whistled, though physical marks always appear as part of the spellcasting even if they haven't been literally written. Free Magic relies chiefly on raw willpower, but Free Magic sorcerers sometimes use written runes to help focus that power; they're described as resembling twisted or corrupted Charter Marks.The name stems from a Proto-Germanic form reconstructed as * rūnō, which may be translated as 'secret, mystery; secret conversation; rune'. It is the source of Gothic rūna ( 𐍂𐌿𐌽𐌰, 'secret, mystery, counsel'), Old English rún ('whisper, mystery, secret, rune'), Old Saxon rūna ('secret counsel, confidential talk'), Middle Dutch rūne ('id'), Old High German rūna ('secret, mystery'), and Old Norse rún ('secret, mystery, rune'). [5] [6] The earliest Germanic epigraphic attestation is the Primitive Norse rūnō (accusative singular), found on the Einang stone (AD 350–400) and the Noleby stone (AD 450). [4] The most prolific source for runic magic in the Poetic Edda is the Sigrdrífumál, where the valkyrie Sigrdrífa ( Brynhild) presents Sigurd with a memory-draught of ale that had been charmed with "gladness runes" (stanza 5),