Rune Might: The Secret Practices of the German Rune Magicians - Edred Thorsson 2018

The Runes around Us
Appendices

The Romance of Runic Hieroglyphics

The roots of early twentieth-century runic occultism were firmly planted in the Romanticism of nineteenth-century Germany. Dreckmann (1955) discusses the origins of this idea. Many Romantics held that mysterious symbols and signs in nature formed communicative links between mankind and the supernal world and between the heavens and nature. Egyptian hieroglyphics either had not yet been fully deciphered, or had just been so, at the time. Therefore, this secret picture writing (which the Egyptian hieroglyphics are not) evoked this idea in the Romantic mind.

The runes and the search for the origins of writing in the history of mankind was a seductive topic for investigators around the turn of the century. Therefore, it could be expected that runology would be swept up in this fervor to some extent. Academic runologists only debated as to whether the runes originated from the Greek, Roman, or some North Italic (non-Roman) script. Nowadays it is quite settled that the Roman alphabet was the original model for the Germanic runes. But at the time of Guido von List it was often popular to assume that all writing had actually been derived from the runes—which may have had their origins in the mythic land of Atlantis.

In fact, the runic system does straddle the worlds of literacy and non-literacy. It was well into the Middle Ages before runes were extensively used as an ordinary and profane script in the same sense as the Greek or Roman alphabets were from their beginnings. The signs were probably always associated with iconic names and mythic content and originally employed for divination and other operative purposes. So runes really stand somewhere between writing and poetic symbolism.

The Armanen all see the individual runes as originally being icons, as visible images of the things they name—for example, things in nature: = horns of cattle; = the shoulders of a bison; = a hammer; = the face of Odin; = the stepping of a horse; = a torch in a tree. Now, by the same token, these naturally occurring phenomena may be seen as signs, when viewed by a sage, to be read like a runic inscription in nature. Thus the environment can actually be made to speak directly to the individual initiate!

In Armanic theory these signs and symbols were encoded into all sorts of things in ancient times, from architectural features to the shapes of baked goods, and from heraldic devices to the runes of the futhork. After Christianization these features became what the German Romantics would call versunkenes Kulturgut, “submerged cultural material.” The patterns were still reproduced by artisans and craftsmen as a matter of pure tradition, although their original significances had been lost. These “folkloric” designs and motifs could then be read by the Armanic initiate who had learned their inner keys.

In this short passage with the heading “Runen um uns” (Runes around Us) from his 1937 book, Runen und Sinnbilder (Runes and Symbols), Weigel not only lays out some of the principles by which he worked but also alludes to the resistance he met from more sober academics in the university setting in which he found himself as a part of his position in the Ahnenerbe.

The use of runes has long since ceased in our homeland proper. Only in isolated instances has evidence been found on German soil of those mysterious signs. It may well be a matter of the fact that the original material in which the runes were engraved or carved, wood, has perished and that therefore only a few runes remain that were engraved in clay, stone, or metal. In the North where the runes remained in use a few hundred years later, even if not in their original significance, we have a greater number of runic monuments, the numerous runestones that provide information primarily about the use of runes as written characters. In spite of this, we still today find runes all around us.

Runic signs occur most frequently wherever the symbols of everyday living are found—that is, on buildings of the most diverse kinds. Just as ancient symbols were used for the protection of houses or the tribe (on house gates, gables, or roofs, often in the same positions where runes were employed), runes too are regarded as symbols, something that is clear in the explanations concerning runes and symbols. Thus, we have express representations of runes of the most diverse kinds on building structures in cities and villages. Furthermore, however, house-marks themselves often demonstrate pure runic forms or such a close relationship to them that one can clearly recognize their runic origins. We also find them in masons’ marks, but here again with a completely different meaning. Ancient knowledge may be preserved in them just as it is in house-marks. A great deal of knowledge about primeval forces, meaningful usage of old patterns in Gothic tracery, is expressed in ancient guild customs that have since been lost, such that it would be valuable to pursue these things as well, since from this there might arise an understanding that could help us unlock the meaning of things in ancient times. And finally, in connection with half-timbered construction itself, runic symbols have likewise been preserved, which even today can still speak to us. One must, however, categorically resist the temptation of wanting to read each and every beam as a rune. The danger is close at hand of being led off into the extravagance of imaginative decoding of so-called runic houses. On the other hand, that constructions exist that consciously make use of individual runes in a meaningful way can be proved by conspicuous examples. We also find runes on old church buildings, hidden or out in the open, that demonstrate the knowledge of the workshops finding expression here, or in other ancient customs, the deeper meaning of which has been lost to us.

When we survey the collections of the household implements and furniture belonging to farmers there we also often encounter runic signs. Here small and unpretentious things speak to us, which in more or less hidden ways prove out ancient knowledge, and hundreds of objects conceal primeval wisdom that we have to discover today. Often in the strangest places we sometimes surprisingly see runes, even entire runic rows, that speak of the knowledge of our forefathers, even if at the time these signs were executed they may have no longer retained their old meanings. The knowledge of the folk preserves these things so truly that we stand in reverent amazement before the revelations of our prehistory. Ancestral heritage [Ahnenerbe] speaks to us. We do not want to fortify ourselves behind a thousand “ifs and buts” but rather just accept what we find as it comes to us. Only out of the multiplicity of all things will we actually find a way forward. Collecting and protecting what still exists is more important for today. Knowledge will grow out of the things themselves. With our knowledge of prehistory it is perhaps the special work of our time to be able to make such a step forward, one in which our deep connection to the soil of our homeland will not only enable us to make everything clear to the last doubter but also clearly and unambiguously validate the momentous significance of our early culture.

Our perception must become knowledge. The chain of evidence must be completed without gaps, which has up to now not been the case, so that we can demonstrate the innermost meaning of our ancestral culture, no longer in a fragmentary way through individual finds and isolated bits of knowledge. And the eternal habitual opponents finally will have to align themselves positively with us and stop functioning merely as spirits who constantly negate everything, and begin to help out in a constructive manner. (Weigel, Runen und Sinnbilder, 61—62)

Weigel had early on been inspired by the influential work of Philipp Stauff, whose ideas fall into the hieroglyphic interpretation of signs. Stauff and others believed that the runes were originally ideographic signs that were only later used for any sort of writing as we think of it today. Originally they were ideograms with meaningful content but were not “letters” per se. In this form they survived in the folk memory and found their way into the patterns used in the arts and crafts of the common people. It is in this context that they were, according to Stauff, used in creating patterns in the timbers of half-timbered (Ger. Fachwerk) constructions. These patterns were certainly often intended to be decorative and aesthetically pleasing, especially in Germany. Stauff combined the iconic meaning of the runes (as pioneered by List) and read them into the patterns of half-timbered buildings across Germany. In this way he could read secret meanings into the patterns of this or that building. An example of this found in his 1913 book, Runenhäuser (Rune-Houses), relates to a quaint yellow house on the Plönlein (Little Square) in the town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber. This historic building makes up part of one of the most famous, most painted and photographed sightseeing locations in Germany. According to Stauff, it also contains its own wisdom (see figure below).

Stauff interprets the main features of the timber-work on the house as follows:

The Is-rune stands above between the two sawhorses [Sageböcke]. To the left and right of the lower sawhorse stand two large Yr-runes. So we read: tuo yr, tri gibor is [two yr-runes, three gibor-runes, one is-rune = ]. That would mean: “Two go astray; but the revolving cosmic phenomenon (the holy triad of coming into being, changing, and passing away to new arising) provides duration (firmness, stability).” Two go astray—this refers to marriage, to the familial residential house. And this wise saying finds a kind of counterpart in the lower row. Two firedogs [Fyrböcke] symbolize two fires: the one to the left descends and rules out of the godhead, the Urfyr [primeval fire] (because the crossbeam line is ascribed to it); the one to the right, however, is the hearthfire, which leads upward (vertical beam line) striving out of humanity toward divinity. Between both stands the Is-rune as a symbol of firmness, duration, and stability. (Stauff, Runenhäuser, 42)

The old Fachwerk house in Rothenburg ob der Tauber showing runic patterns read by Philipp Stauff (from a vintage postcard, ca. 1900)

Just as the abstract shapes of the runes make up pictographic ideograms, other images, such as those found on the crests and coats-of-arms belonging to families and cities, are also thought to contain runic information that can be decoded according to Armanic wisdom. List’s 1910 book, Die Bilderschrift der Ario-Germanen, is a visual esoteric textbook for the decoding of heraldic devices according to Armanic ideology. An example of this process as applied to the heraldic emblem for the city of Mainz, Germany, is described by List as follows:

Seal of the City of Mainz, heraldic description: in a silver shield red shield head, two red six-spoked wheels connected by a golden cross pattée: according to the kalic (esoteric) interpretation: wit ruoth hofut balk lagu (or: abastigan) tuo fex rod band geold rednion hofut = “head law and justice (or: highest right and law) is in a darkened position (having descended from its high place) act according to the law in which power that has become action functions, bound to the shining main knowledge of Armanendom.”

(List, Bilderschrift der Ario-Germanen, 245)

Here, as elsewhere, List makes use of the strange “heraldic language.” In this language, based on archaic dialect, the colors are described, each of which has a special symbolic meaning. According to his interpretation of the seal of the city of Mainz, the area was once the site of an ancient pre-Christian Armanic Halgadom.

Another avenue of esoteric interpretation of the environment was the discovery of features of the landscape that at first glance appear to be either natural formations or architectural features stemming from the Christian Middle Ages but which reveal hidden meanings when the eye of the Armanic initiate is cast upon them. Before Guido von List wrote his first book on runes, he had already become famous for his two-volume treatise titled Deutsch-mythologische Landschaftsbilder (German-Mythological Landscape Portraits, 1891). This book contains his sometimes esoteric reflections on sites mainly from his native Lower Austria. Prehistoric constructions of the Celts, as well as castles and churches from the Middle Ages, are interpreted as monuments with hidden Armanic significance. One of List’s students, Bert Rogge, was able to interpret what are apparently natural rock formations as the ancient remnants of gargantuan sculptures in his 1985 book, Das Gesicht Alteuropas und das Geheimnis seiner Felsbilder (The Face of Old Europe and the Secret of Its Stone Images).

The fascinating part of this whole way of looking at things is that it imbues the atmosphere and whole environment with a sense of mystery and profound meaningfulness. Psychologically, this attitude fills the individual with enthusiasm. All depression and melancholy vanishes in such a world. Whether the symbols were put there by our ancient ancestors, or whether we are just interpreting in meaningful ways things that were put there thoughtlessly or as the result of natural phenomena, the energy imparted to the individual who learns to move about and live within this wonderland of symbols can be palpable.