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

Adulrunor And The Secret Calculation of Time
From the Renaissance to the Baroque

Bure uses the cruciform figure of the adulrunor to measure time in mysterious ways. The right arm of the cross renders ᛐ (300), ᛏ (5), (1), and ᚾ (60) = 366—the number of days in a complete circuit of the Sun. The fifth stave ᚼ = 30: the number of days in a lunar cycle from new moon to new moon. This is the heart of the bride being embraced by the bridegroom, which is the Sun. This cosmic embrace of the primeval masculine and feminine first took place in Paradise. The staves to the right: = 90 + 1 + 3+ 700 = 794. According to Bure’s calculations, this is the number of years between the conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn—the two highest planets of (medieval) astronomy. These numbers were used by Bure to arrive at cosmological dates—such as 1648, which was to be the date of the next “embrace” of the Sun and Moon (794 x 2 + 2 x 30 = 1648 AD).^*6 Thus, the Incarnation of Christ occurred at one of the conjunctions of Saturn and Jupiter. The importance of such a conjunction to Bure is linked with the esoteric interpretation of the planet/god Saturn with the “Gothic” god Oden (fate) = Odin.^*7

Another of Bure’s calculations concerns the sum of the vertical runes of the cross (500 + 100 + 70 + 900 + 30 + 5 = 1605). The year 1605 is the one in which Bure received the idea of the adulrunor—the idea descended upon him, and with and from this concept, or Word, he spent the rest of his life ascending the ladder of the runes.

The numerological and eschatological speculations embedded in Bure’s work are often extremely obscure to the outsider. Some of Bure’s contemporary detractors accused him of trying to speculate endlessly, and irrationally, about the date of the “end of the world,” and they tried to make it seem that he had become mentally incompetent. The facts do not bear out this interpretation, which now seems to be politically motivated rhetoric at the court of the king. However, his speculations in this direction are obscure and leave themselves open to such attacks. For anyone who can penetrate his code of thought, illumination might accompany their insights.