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

The Older Futhark
The Runic Tradition—An Overview

To study the revival of the runic tradition, we have to outline what that tradition was in ancient times before it died out. Most serious esoteric runologists today agree with the exoteric ones regarding the basic facts about what that tradition was in its external form. This was originally a system of twenty-four signs, each of which stood for a sound value in the contemporary Germanic language. Over time this system underwent a number of elaborations and modifications, which can be described and interpreted. It took scientific runology centuries to figure out this system and its history in all its details, as we will see.

Esoteric runologists, on the other hand, historically often create runic systems that are at odds with exoteric runological facts. This runs the gamut from Johan Bure’s Adulruna to Guido von List’s Armanen Runen (Armanic runes). It appears that some current would-be esoteric runologists also cannot help themselves from somehow altering the best-known facts about the tradition; for example, by changing the order or names of the runes to suit idiosyncratic interpretations. It is such whimsical alteration that often causes would-be esoteric runologists to lose any shred of respect they might have otherwise gained from the academic world.

The Older Futhark

In this chapter I propose to discuss the nature of the futhark system and its historical manifestations. The word futhark (or fuþark^*2) would appear to be the invention of nineteenth-century scholars, and it is an acronym formed from the phonetic values of the first six staves of the rune row, f—u—þ—a—r—k (see below). However, the principle of having the first few staves stand for the entire row was one used in ancient times as well. Part of the inscription on the sixth-century bow brooch of Aquincum reads:

Under no circumstances should it be forgotten that the term rune is a complex one. It has the primary definition of “mysterium, arcanum, secret lore” and is only secondarily defined as the sign or symbol representing an individual sound of the contemporary spoken Germanic language.

The runic system is a complex of factors, all of which interrelate to form an organic structure. The basic ingredients in this structure are:

1. Name (indicating a phonetic value and an idea)

2. Shape

3. Order (number)

4. Tripartite Division

Thus, each runestave has a distinctive name that conveys a kernel concept in the runic ideology, while the first phoneme in the name indicates the phonetic value of the stave in writing practice. It must be borne in mind that the staves were also often used as ideograms; for example, ᛃ could stand for the concept “good harvest” as well as for the sound [j] (pronounced as in English /y/). The shape of the stave can also be considered ideographically and could suggest or denote mythic content to the poetic minds of the ancient runemasters. The ordering of the staves (and the resulting numerical values) constitutes the first element of the inter-runic network of meaning. Through number, connections between different runes are revealed and bonds can be made. The next level of the inter-runic connectivity is expressed by the division of the futhark system into three sets later called in Old Norse ættir (sg. ætt), meaning “families, kindreds.” This, too, communicates a new set of connections and makes a new level of bond-shaping possible. These interconnective factors are features that should also be familiar to the poetic mind-set; they allow for connections to be made between and among things that would otherwise seem unrelated.

As can be seen from the various futhark systems outlined in the coming pages, there is a remarkable level of consistency in these factors. It can scarcely be doubted that a great tradition underlies the systematic consistency of these factors over at least a thousand years of runelore. There are essentially two great historical periods for the runic tradition: the “older” and the “younger.” The period of the Older Futhark of twenty-four staves probably spans from the beginning of the Common Era to about 750 CE. The second period begins circa 750, when the system was transformed into the Younger Futhark of sixteen runes. This second system was in use throughout Scandinavia during the period generally referred to as the Viking Age (ca. 800—1100 CE). This younger system gradually fell into disuse after it was subsumed by an alphabetic runic system. Although alphabetic runestaves continued to be used in inscriptions well into the nineteenth century in certain specific areas (the Swedish province of Dalarna, on the island of Gotland, and in Iceland), knowledge of the runic script had generally died out in Scandinavia by about 1500.

Tables 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 in this chapter provide the various futharks with indications of their divisions into ætt-systems, numerical and phonetic values, along with their names and the English meanings of those names. It is unclear as to when these names were originally applied to the runic characters, but it is likely that they were part of the archaic system since these names could have given the continuity and context that allowed the system to thrive for centuries across many tribal boundaries.

How do we know about the existence of the runic tradition? Upon what evidence can we base a history of this kind? To begin with, and what we must constantly come back to, it is the corpus of runic inscriptions themselves that provides the most compelling evidence for the existence of an ancient network of runecarvers. In all there are more than five thousand of these artifacts. The greatest number of these runic artifacts were carved in Scandinavia (especially in Sweden) between about 980 and 1130.

During the earliest period, from the beginning of the tradition to about 750 CE, runic inscriptions were carved in the twenty-four runes of the Older Futhark. It has been remarked that the runic system of sounds formed a “perfect fit” for the Germanic language used by the carvers at the time of the invention of the script. For every sound in the language, there was a sign. In all there are only about five hundred inscriptions known to us from this early period, half of which are found on bracteates (stamped gold medallions) made between about 450 and 550 CE in Scandinavia, especially in Denmark.

The runic tradition may have begun as early as about 150 BCE or as late as about 50 CE. The runic system of writing was ultimately based on one or more Mediterranean scripts such as the Greek, the North Italic, but most especially the Latin alphabet used by the Romans. It was probably the invention of a single individual who was either well placed in an existing network of workers in language—poets, magicians, and storytellers—or who was indeed the creator of a new network that arose based on his invention of the writing system to be used by runemasters among all Germanic tribes.

Historians who study the development of writing systems have determined that the origin of a particular script usually lies somewhere between one and two hundred years prior to the first surviving attestation of that script. For many years it was thought that an ornamented spearhead found in —vre-Stabu, Norway, and dated to approximately 150 CE featured the oldest extant runic inscription. In 1979 an inscription on a brooch from Meldorf in present-day Germany came to light, which has been conclusively dated to somewhere about 50 CE. The only question in this regard is whether the Meldorf inscription is actually runic or not. Using these dates and the general criteria for the origin of scripts, the time of the invention of the runes would again be somewhere between 150 BCE and 50 CE, with the median falling approximately circa 50 BCE. This would roughly correspond to the time of increased Roman-Germanic interaction that began in the era of Julius Caesar. By the advent of the Roman Empire under Augustus (reigned 27 BCE—14 CE), this cultural exchange had become more intense on economic, military, and perhaps other levels.

Various theories exist as to the manner in which the runic system came into being. These theories fall into two main camps: the autochthonous and the exotic. The autocthonous view contends that the runes were invented totally within the Germanic world and were formed from preexisting holy signs. Adherents of such a theory hold that the runes are of extreme antiquity; they may even claim them to be the origin of the other scripts of the world. Autocthonous theories were believed in by various runologists from Johan Bure to Herman Wirth. As it turns out, there is really no good evidence for an autocthonous origin of the runes. Most scholars recognize that the Mediterranean alphabets such as the Greek, North Italic, or Latin/Roman script are older than the runes and that the runes are based on one—or possibly a combination—of these Mediterranean scripts. A reasonable middle ground, perhaps, between these two theories would acknowledge that the majority of the runes were based on Mediterranean letters but that some of them are of indigenous origin and may have even been based on preexisting signs used by the Germanic peoples before they actually wrote in runes proper. A review of all of these theories is contained in my book Runes and Runology (Flowers 2020).

In any event, most runologists agree that by the early years of the Common Era the Older Futhark of twenty-four runes was established and in use among the many Germanic tribes that were spread over three million square miles of Europe. Runes were probably not found in every tribal group, but they were known to many of them in all parts of Europe and all along the pathways of tribal movements during the great Migration Age (300—550).

The original runic system appeared as it does in table 1.1 (below), which shows the Older Futhark and indicates the sequence of the rune-signs, their basic phonetic values or sounds, and their particular names along with a translation of each name. There are many problems in determining the exact qualities of these rune-names, as no direct record exists of them from the earliest time period. However, because the Old English runes and the Scandinavian Younger Futhark runes had well-established and copiously documented names that indicate a high level of agreement between these systems, most scholars agree that the earlier Proto-Germanic forms of the rune-names can be reconstructed with relative accuracy and that these names—or similar ones—were attached to the signs from the beginning.

The shapes of the individual runestaves were remarkably consistent. A few of them also showed a high degree of variation. This is especially true, for example, of the u-run , the k-rune , the j-rune , the s-rune , and the ng-rune . Some of the most important things to realize about the system are that there were twenty-four runes in it, no more and no less; that the runes were arranged in a certain order; and that each rune-shape was characterized by certain visual characteristics that distinguished it from the others. A summary of the system is presented in table 1.1.

The data presented in this table can be considered the bedrock of runic tradition. This is a tradition often fraught with certain problems of detail that have been endlessly argued over by scholars, but most of it is fairly well established as far as most runologists are concerned. A review of the problems associated with the names of the runes is contained in my book Runes and Runology. The next level of solid tradition is formed by the texts of the medieval rune poems, which explain the various runestaves in mythic and cultural contexts. These poems are presented, translated, and discussed in my book The Rune-Poems (Flowers 2019).