Runes are one of the oldest forms of European magical writing that date back before 1300 BC. They were used in a myriad of ways, for communication, magical means and for the connection to the old gods. Still today many use them for there myriad of powers and there same meanings still hold true from those many thousands of years ago.
Evidence possibly suggests that are related to old English communication and by looking at the symbols you can see the correlation between some of the runes and the old English language. Whether that is hearsay or not, that is up to the persons opinion. To me it looks very likely that the letters in English were used both ways and thus the runes helped form the original English language as well.
Did you know that the name Furthark is from the first 6 letters of the runic alphabet..? Also did you know that Rune Masters consisted of both male and female sorcerers and that these people were highly respected in there day.
Runes and the Gods
The runes are also very much connected to the old gods as with all daily life back then. These old gods ( pagan belief ) were more considered the way back then before the Christ religion came in and adopted much of the same practices of the pagan beliefs, the only difference was that they claimed one main god rather than many. Interestingly enough today many christian interpretations claim but one god, however throughout the old bible it suggests more so that there was one main god with others as well similar in a way to the beliefs of Pagan and Norse mythology.
For a reference of a term suggesting more than one god one example being the old phrase “man was formed in our image”. Our meaning more than one.. Because of this reference of similarity between Christian belief and Ancient Pagan Belief ( Norse or Pagan) with the runes it suggests not much really changed other than a few different marketing aspects of the Christian religion today.
The Runes alphabet was separated into 3 main families of 8 named after each of the powerful Norse gods. Those families are:
Freyr’s Eight: Fehu, Uruz, Thurisaz, Ansuz, Raido, Kano, Gebo, Wunjo
Hagal’s Eight: Hagalaz, Nauthiz, Isa, Jera, Eihwaz, Perth, Algiz, Sowelu
Tyr’s Eight: Teiwaz, Berkana, Ehwaz, Mannaz, Laguz, Inguz, Othila, Dagaz.
As for the action of Rune Casting, most of these old practice from ancient Rune Masters died out just over 300 years ago. Only through research such as this writing in this post referenced from many old texts, can we all help keep this ancient form of Magick alive today.
Rune Meanings
Below is the comprehensive list of meanings of all the runes known through out history, each one detailing the meaning and powers it was used for in divination and the like. There is as i mentioned above 24 runes with the bonus rune that rules them all making a total of 25, the rune of Odin, this rune is blank representing all energy of life.. The ultimate rune of power.
