A Handbook of Saxon Sorcery & Magic: Wyrdworking, Rune Craft, Divination & Wortcunning - Alaric Albertsson 2017

How to Write with Runes
Appendix

Writing with runes is both complicated and simple. It is complicated because Old English may be old, but it is nevertheless English, and is as insane as our modern variation when it comes to spelling and pronunciation. At the same time, it is simple because there were so few standardized rules when the Futhorc runes were used for writing. It is difficult to really get it “wrong” very often.

The most important principle to keep in mind is that you are writing phonetically. Consider the sound you are making, not the exact letter from the Roman alphabet. For example, if you were to write east it is tempting to write eh, ác, sigel, tir, substituting runes for letters of the alphabet. But ea is always a diphthong in Old English, sounding something like “ay-ah.” The is rune would be a better vowel choice, and stán—giving the “st” sound—would be a more economical way to end the word.

Vowels

As in Modern English, most of the runic vowels have both long and short forms. The difference in pronunciation is more akin to regional dialects; they do not render the writing indecipherable. Consider the modern word been. Some people pronounce this with a long e, and others pronounce it as a short i, but we all understand what is said. The following vowel sounds are arranged in Modern English alphabetical order.

The æsc rune makes an a sound as in ash or track.

As a long vowel, ác makes the sound of a (ah) as in father. The short vowel sounds like the u (uh) as in buddy.

The long vowel eh is our modern English long a, as in gate. As a short vowel, this gives the modern English short e (eh), as in bed.

The exact pronunciation of this rune is debatable, but it has been postulated that it represents an “ah-ee” sound, as in pie or try.

Is gives a long vowel sound like the modern English long e, as in feed. The short vowel is like a modern short i, as in fit.

The long vowel sound of os is like the modern English long o, as in coat. The short vowel is like the modern short o, as in pot or cot.

I have given the phonetic value for ethel elsewhere as “oh-ee,” as in noise or boy, however I am not entirely convinced this is correct. I have seen this and no other alternative given in many sources. The reason I question the phonetic value is because it is rarely found anywhere in Old English literature. It seems odd to me that a diphthong worthy of its own rune would have disappeared almost entirely from the language when the Roman alphabet was adopted. I personally believe this was a variant of the consonantal “th.” After the adoption of a Roman alphabet, Old English script retained several unique symbols, including one known as eth, which gave a “th” sound and was written as Ð (capitalized) and ð (small form).

As a long vowel, ur makes the “ooh” sound we hear in food. As a short vowel, it becomes the sound we hear in took.

Yr does not have any equivalent sound in Modern English. It most closely resembles the “eu” sound in some French words. I have heard it described as sounding like the first vowel in the word burger if you drop the r. You will not be using this rune for writing unless transcribing Old English words like fyrn (meaning ancient) or myne (that part of the Self that includes memories and emotions).

The ior rune is a diphthong pronounced as a Modern English long e gliding into a long o sound, as in Creole.

This rune, ear, is pronounced as a Modern English long a gliding into an “uh” sound.

Consonants

Many of the consonants of the Futhorc are used and pronounced like their Modern English equivalents, but there are—as one might expect with any variant of English—numerous exceptions. These are arranged in Modern English alphabetical order. Any letters that are not discussed are obvious equivalents.

In Old English, feoh was pronounced like the modern f when it came at the beginning or end of a word, and usually like the modern v in the middle of a word. Two feoh runes together in the middle of a word always make an “f” sound. Use feoh for “f,” and double it when the sound comes in the middle of a word.

Use the gár rune whenever you want a hard “g,” as in game, get, or girl.

Hagol is usually pronounced just as we pronounce the modern h. At the end of a word, and when doubled, this rune indicates the “ch” in the Scottish word loch. But unless you are going to write loch, you can pretty much ignore this. What you should not ignore is that hagol comes before wynn when making the sound we now indicate as wh. Just as it sounds. I have no idea why (pronounced “hwigh”) or when (pronounced “hwen”) we decided to reverse the letters in the spelling of the words.

or There is no letter j in the Futhorc. In the middle or end of a word use a cen followed by a gyfu to indicate a “j” sound. At the beginning of a word, use the double cen.

Our modern letter c can indicate two sounds, “k” and “s.” In the same way, the cen rune indicates two different phonetic sounds, in this case “k” and “ch.” If it precedes an eh, or either precedes or follows an is, this rune usually makes a “ch” sound. If it precedes any other vowel or a consonant, it makes a “k” sound. Doubling the rune changes this to a “ch” regardless of the following consonant or vowel, as in Old English words like wicca (witch) and feccan (to fetch).

For the most part, you can substitute this rune for the letter c. In words like china and children, the rune by itself indicates the “ch” sound. If you want a “ch” in front of any vowel other than e or i—as in words like charge or chore—use a double cen.

This single rune makes the sound we write as ng. Be careful when you use this rune. Although we write finger in Modern English, the n and g in the middle do not make a true “ng” sound. In finger the g is hard (fin-ger). For a word such as this, use níed and gar. Contrast the pronunciation with the word singer, where we do hear the clear “ng” sound (sing-er).

Cweorth indicates a “kw” sound, which we now usually write as qu. There was no q in Old English. You can also indicate the “kw” by writing cen followed by wynn, but cweorth shortens the sound to a single rune, which can be a great time saver if you are carving an inscription into stone.

At the beginning or end of a word, sigel makes a sound like the modern s. In the middle of a word it makes the sound of a voiced z. To make an s in the middle of a word such as essay, use a double sigel.

I should mention here that the “sh” sound is made with a sigel followed by cen. This combination of consonants can also very rarely indicate a “sk” sound. The “sk” sound is only found in Old English words related to foreign cultures, as in the word Scottaland (Scotland). There is no rule for the different phonetic values; they must be determined by the context of the writing.

Thorn represents the sound “th.” This combination of letters represents two sounds in Modern English, the voiced “th” in words like thin and the unvoiced “th” in words like them. The good news is that thorn is used in the same way. In the early English variety of the Roman alphabet, a script known as the Insular Hand, the “th” sound was indicated by two letters: þ (pronounced thorn) and ð (pronounced eth). The letter thorn is just a smoother, rounded version of the runic thorn, whereas eth, as I have mentioned, may be a version of the ethel rune. Both of these letters were used interchangeably, sometimes by the same scribe in the same document. I realize that does not make sense, but then when did English ever make much sense?

There really is no rune that represents a true modern v. Use a single feoh when the v comes in the middle of the word. In Old English, the v sound is never found at the beginning of a word. Of course, if you are using runes to write in Modern English, this is a huge stumbling block when you come to words like very, visit, or voice. I handle this by using the wynn rune, which gives my runic writing a Slavic tone, like Ensign Chekov’s dialect in the original Star Trek television series, but it is nevertheless understandable.

Gear should always be followed with an eh or an is, and indicates a consonantal y. To create a y sound followed by any other vowel, use gyfu and eh, and then continue with your word. For example, the word yard would be written (using Roman letters) as geard, which is in fact exactly how the word was spelled by the earliest English scribes. Again, this will impose a distinct archaic dialect in your writing, but the runes were not intended to accommodate twenty-first-century speech.

or Use eolh when you want a z at the beginning or end of a word. Z sounds in the middle of a word are represented by a sigil.

All of these rules may seem intimidating at first, but do not let them scare you. Nobody is going to laugh if you use the wrong vowel, or if you forget and use tir and hagol rather than a thorn to make a “th” sound. You want your runic writing to be comprehensible, but, beyond that, it does not matter much if you make a few mistakes. Very few of the early Saxons could read or write at all, and here you are writing with runes! Have fun, and be proud of your accomplishment.