Revival of the Runes: The Modern Rediscovery and Reinvention of the Germanic Runes - Stephen E. Flowers Ph.D. 2021

Bure’S Concept of Adulruna
From the Renaissance to the Baroque

Bure begins his Adulruna Rediviva by laying out the function of the runic system as a mediator between the divine and human levels of existence. He says that the creative word of God is a mediator between God and his creations and that in the human realm this is mirrored in languages, which act as mediators between speakers and listeners. This notion is extended then to writing, which is also God-given, as a mediator between writers and readers. Bure notes that Jesus uses a metaphor by which he refers to himself as a writing system: “I am the Alpha (Α) and the Omega (Ω)” (Revelation 1:8). Bure also refers to a stone as the most noble and lasting of all things. Clearly, then, a runestone is more than just an archaeological artifact for Bure—it is a mediator between the divine and human minds.

According to Bure, everything that exists is either creative or created, but between them there is another level, which is creation. This is the creative process itself. For this reason, Bure states that the originators of the runic system made the rune row in three groups of five staves. The first group of five is designated as the progenitor (Sw. födare), the second as that of generation (Sw. födelse), and the third as that of the generated (Sw. foster). Here we find the reason why Bure did not want to recognize ᛣ as an independent rune. Only with its identification with r can the number of runes be reduced to fifteen.

Although Bure was somewhat familiar with the newly reemerging data on the runes—such as their traditional shapes, names, and the poetic stanzas attached to each—he dismissed this information as exoteric and relied on his subjective vision to unlock the secrets of the adulrunor. This accounts for the non-traditional elements in the system of Adulruna Rediviva. It must be kept in mind that what little was known and had been published about the runes from ancient manuscripts appeared after Bure had already codified the essentials of his esoteric system. This codification took place between 1605 and 1613.

Fig. 3.6. Bure’s illustrative runic monument