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Languages Germanic languages
Time period
Elder Futhark from the 2nd century AD
Parent systems
Child systems
Younger Futhark, Anglo-Saxon futhorc
Direction Left-to-right
ISO 15924 Runr, 211
Unicode alias



The earliest runic inscriptions date from around 150 AD, the characters were generally replaced by the Latin alphabet as the cultures that had used runes underwent Christianisation, by approximately 700 AD in central Europe and 1100 AD in northern Europe. However, the use of runes persisted for specialized purposes in northern Europe, until the early 20th century, runes were used in rural Sweden for decorative purposes in Dalarna and on Runic calendars.



The process of transmission of the script is unknown, the oldest inscriptions are found in Denmark and northern Germany. A "West Germanic hypothesis" suggests transmission via Elbe Germanic groups, while a "Gothic hypothesis" presumes transmission via East Germanic expansion.

History and use[edit]


The runes were in use among the Germanic peoples from the 1st or 2nd century AD,[a] this period corresponds to the late Common Germanic stage linguistically, with a continuum of dialects not yet clearly separated into the three branches of later centuries: North Germanic, West Germanic, and East Germanic.


The term runes is used to distinguish these symbols from Latin and Greek letters, it is attested on a 6th-century Alamannic runestaff as runa and possibly as runo on the 4th-century Einang stone. The name comes from the Germanic root run- (Gothic: 𐍂𐌿𐌽𐌰, runa), meaning "secret" or "whisper". In Old Irish Gaelic, the word rún means "mystery", "secret", "intention" or "affectionate love." Similarly in Welsh and Old English, the word rhin and rūn respectively means "mystery", "secret", "secret writing", or sometimes in the extreme sense of the word, "miracle" (gwyrth). Ogham is a Celtic script, similarly carved in the Norse manner. The root run- can also be found in the Baltic languages, meaning "speech"; in Lithuanian, runoti means both "to cut (with a knife)" and "to speak".[3] According to another theory, the Germanic root comes from the Indo-Europan root *reuə- "dig",[4] the Finnish term for rune, riimukirjain, means "scratched letter".[5] The Finnish word runo means "poem" and comes from the same source as the English word "rune"; it is a very old loan of the Proto-Germanic *rūnō ("letter, literature, secret").[6]


The runes developed centuries after the Old Italic alphabets from which they are probably historically derived, the debate on the development of the runic script concerns the question regarding which of the Italic alphabets should be taken as their point of origin and which, if any, signs should be considered original innovations added to the letters found in the Italic scripts. The historical context of the script's origin is the cultural contact between Germanic people, who often served as mercenaries in the Roman army, and the Italian peninsula during the Roman imperial period (1st century BC to 5th century AD).[citation needed] The formation of the Elder Futhark was complete by the early 5th century, with the Kylver Stone being the first evidence of the futhark ordering as well as of the p rune.



The angular shapes of the runes are shared with most contemporary alphabets of the period that were used for carving in wood or stone. There are no horizontal strokes: when carving a message on a flat staff or stick, it would be along the grain, thus both less legible and more likely to split the wood, this characteristic is also shared by other alphabets, such as the early form of the Latin alphabet used for the Duenos inscription, but it is not universal, especially among early runic inscriptions, which frequently have variant rune shapes, including horizontal strokes. Runic manuscripts (that is written rather than carved runes, such as Codex Runicus) also show horizontal strokes.


Early inscriptions[edit]

Ring of Pietroassa (c. 250–400 AD) by Henri Trenk, 1875

Runic inscriptions from the 400-year period 150–550 AD are described as "Period I", these inscriptions are generally in Elder Futhark, but the set of letter shapes and bindrunes employed is far from standardized. Notably the j, s, and ŋ runes undergo considerable modifications, while others, such as p and ï, remain unattested altogether prior to the first full futhark row on the Kylver Stone (c. 400 AD).

Artifacts such as spear heads or shield mounts have been found that bear runic marking that may be dated to 200 AD, as evidenced by artifacts found across northern Europe in Schleswig (North Germany), Fyn, Sjælland, Jylland (Denmark), and Skåne (Sweden). Earlier—but less reliable—artifacts have been found in Meldorf, Süderdithmarschen, northern Germany; these include brooches and combs found in graves, most notably the Meldorf fibula, and are supposed to have the earliest markings resembling runic inscriptions.



Magical or divinatory use[edit]

An illustration of the Gummarp Runestone (500–700 AD) from Blekinge, Sweden


Þat kann ek it tolfta,
ef ek sé á tré uppi
váfa virgilná,:
svá ek ríst ok í rúnum fák,
at sá gengr gumi
ok mælir við mik.[20]

I know a twelfth one
if I see up in a tree,
a dangling corpse in a noose,
I can so carve and colour the runes,
that the man walks
and talks with me.[21]

The earliest runic inscriptions found on artifacts give the name of either the craftsman or the proprietor, or sometimes, remain a linguistic mystery. Due to this, it is possible that the early runes were not used so much as a simple writing system, but rather as magical signs to be used for charms, although some say the runes were used for divination, there is no direct evidence to suggest they were ever used in this way. The name rune itself, taken to mean "secret, something hidden", seems to indicate that knowledge of the runes was originally considered esoteric, or restricted to an elite, the 6th-century Björketorp Runestone warns in Proto-Norse using the word rune in both senses:



The same curse and use of the word, rune, is also found on the Stentoften Runestone. There also are some inscriptions suggesting a medieval belief in the magical significance of runes, such as the Franks Casket (AD 700) panel.

Charm words, such as auja, laþu, laukaʀ, and most commonly, alu,[23] appear on a number of Migration period Elder Futhark inscriptions as well as variants and abbreviations of them. Much speculation and study has been produced on the potential meaning of these inscriptions. Rhyming groups appear on some early bracteates that also may be magical in purpose, such as salusalu and luwatuwa. Further, an inscription on the Gummarp Runestone (500–700 AD) gives a cryptic inscription describing the use of three runic letters followed by the Elder Futhark f-rune written three times in succession.[24]






Medieval use[edit]


As Proto-Germanic evolved into its later language groups, the words assigned to the runes and the sounds represented by the runes themselves began to diverge somewhat and each culture would create new runes, rename or rearrange its rune names slightly, or stop using obsolete runes completely, to accommodate these changes. Thus, the Anglo-Saxon futhorc has several runes peculiar to itself to represent diphthongs unique to (or at least prevalent in) the Anglo-Saxon dialect.

Nevertheless, that the Younger Futhark has 16 runes, while the Elder Futhark has 24, is not fully explained by the 600-some years of sound changes that had occurred in the North Germanic language group,[28] the development here might seem rather astonishing, since the younger form of the alphabet came to use fewer different rune signs at the same time as the development of the language led to a greater number of different phonemes than had been present at the time of the older futhark. For example, voiced and unvoiced consonants merged in script, and so did many vowels, while the number of vowels in the spoken language increased, from c. 1100 AD, this disadvantage was eliminated in the medieval runes, which again increased the number of different signs to correspond with the number of phonemes in the language.

Some later runic finds are on monuments (runestones), which often contain solemn inscriptions about people who died or performed great deeds, for a long time it was presumed that this kind of grand inscription was the primary use of runes, and that their use was associated with a certain societal class of rune carvers.

In the mid-1950s, however, approximately 670 inscriptions, known as the Bryggen inscriptions, were found in Bergen,[29] these inscriptions were made on wood and bone, often in the shape of sticks of various sizes, and contained inscriptions of an everyday nature—ranging from name tags, prayers (often in Latin), personal messages, business letters, and expressions of affection, to bawdy phrases of a profane and sometimes even of a vulgar nature. Following this find, it is nowadays commonly presumed that, at least in late use, Runic was a widespread and common writing system.

17th-century clog almanac collected by Sir Hans Sloane. Now in the collection of the British Museum

In the later Middle Ages, runes also were used in the clog almanacs (sometimes called Runic staff, Prim, or Scandinavian calendar) of Sweden and Estonia. The authenticity of some monuments bearing Runic inscriptions found in Northern America is disputed; most of them have been dated to modern times.

Runes in Eddic lore[edit]

In Norse mythology, the runic alphabet is attested to a divine origin (Old Norse: reginkunnr). This is attested as early as on the Noleby Runestone from c. 600 AD that reads Runo fahi raginakundo toj[e'k]a..., meaning "I prepare the suitable divine rune..."[30] and in an attestation from the 9th century on the Sparlösa Runestone, which reads Ok rað runaʀ þaʀ rægi[n]kundu, meaning "And interpret the runes of divine origin".[31] In the Poetic Edda poem Hávamál, Stanza 80, the runes also are described as reginkunnr:

Þat er þá reynt,
er þú að rúnum spyrr
inum reginkunnum,
þeim er gerðu ginnregin
ok fáði fimbulþulr,
þá hefir hann bazt, ef hann þegir.[20]

That is now proved,
what you asked of the runes,
of the potent famous ones,
which the great gods made,
and the mighty sage stained,
that it is best for him if he stays silent.[32]


Veit ek at ek hekk vindga meiði a
netr allar nío,
geiri vndaþr ok gefinn Oðni,
sialfr sialfom mer,

I know that I hung on a windy tree
nine long nights,
wounded with a spear, dedicated to Odin,
myself to myself,
on that tree of which no man knows from where its roots run.[33]

In stanza 139, Odin continues:

Við hleifi mik seldo ne viþ hornigi,
nysta ek niþr,
nam ek vp rvnar,
opandi nam,
fell ek aptr þaðan.

downwards I peered;
I took up the runes,
screaming I took them,
then I fell back from there.[33]


In the Poetic Edda poem Rígsþula another origin is related of how the runic alphabet became known to humans. The poem relates how Ríg, identified as Heimdall in the introduction, sired three sons — Thrall (slave), Churl (freeman), and Jarl (noble) — by human women. These sons became the ancestors of the three classes of humans indicated by their names. When Jarl reached an age when he began to handle weapons and show other signs of nobility, Ríg returned and, having claimed him as a son, taught him the runes; in 1555, the exiled Swedish archbishop Olaus Magnus recorded a tradition that a man named Kettil Runske had stolen three rune staffs from Odin and learned the runes and their magic.

Runic alphabets[edit]

Elder Futhark (2nd to 8th centuries)[edit]

Detail of the Elder Futhark inscription on a replica of one of the 5th-century AD Golden Horns of Gallehus found on Jutland, now Denmark

The Elder Futhark, used for writing Proto-Norse, consists of 24 runes that often are arranged in three groups of eight; each group is referred to as an Ætt. The earliest known sequential listing of the full set of 24 runes dates to approximately AD 400 and is found on the Kylver Stone in Gotland, Sweden.

Most probably each rune had a name, chosen to represent the sound of the rune itself, the names are, however, not directly attested for the Elder Futhark themselves. Reconstructed names in Proto-Germanic have been produced,[by whom?] based on the names given for the runes in the later alphabets attested in the rune poems and the linked names of the letters of the Gothic alphabet. The letter /a/ was named from the runic letter Runic letter ansuz.svg called Ansuz. An asterisk before the rune names means that they are unattested reconstructions, the 24 Elder Futhark runes are:[35]

Rune UCS Transliteration IPA Proto-Germanic name Meaning
f f /f/ *fehu "wealth, cattle"
r r /r/ *raidō "ride, journey"
g g /ɡ/ *gebō "gift"
w w /w/ *wunjō "joy"
n n /n/ *naudiz "need"
t t /t/ *tīwaz/*teiwaz "the god Tyr"
b b /b/ *berkanan "birch"
m m /m/ *mannaz "Man"
ŋ ŋ ŋ ᛜ ᛝ ŋ /ŋ/ *ingwaz "the god Yngvi"
d d /d/ *dagaz "day"


The Anglo-Saxon Futhorc

The futhorc (sometimes written "fuþorc") are an extended alphabet, consisting of 29, and later even 33, characters, it was probably used from the 5th century onwards. There are competing theories as to the origins of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc. One theory proposes that it was developed in Frisia and later spread to England,[citation needed] while another holds that Scandinavians introduced runes to England, where the futhorc was modified and exported to Frisia.[citation needed] Some examples of futhorc inscriptions are found on the Thames scramasax, in the Vienna Codex, in Cotton Otho B.x (Anglo-Saxon rune poem) and on the Ruthwell Cross.





Wilhelm Grimm discussed these runes in 1821.[36]

Younger Futhark (9th to 11th centuries)[edit]


The Younger Futhark, also called Scandinavian Futhark, is a reduced form of the Elder Futhark, consisting of only 16 characters, the reduction correlates with phonetic changes when Proto-Norse evolved into Old Norse. They are found in Scandinavia and Viking Age settlements abroad, probably in use from the 9th century onward, they are divided into long-branch (Danish) and short-twig (Swedish and Norwegian) runes. The difference between the two versions is a matter of controversy. A general opinion is that the difference between them was functional (viz., the long-branch runes were used for documentation on stone, whereas the short-twig runes were in everyday use for private or official messages on wood).

Medieval runes (12th to 15th centuries)[edit]




Dalecarlian runes (16th to 19th centuries)[edit]

According to Carl-Gustav Werner, "In the isolated province of Dalarna in Sweden a mix of runes and Latin letters developed."[39] The Dalecarlian runes came into use in the early 16th century and remained in some use up to the 20th century,[40] some discussion remains on whether their use was an unbroken tradition throughout this period or whether people in the 19th and 20th centuries learned runes from books written on the subject. The character inventory was used mainly for transcribing Elfdalian.

Academic study[edit]

The modern study of runes was initiated during the Renaissance, by Johannes Bureus (1568–1652). Bureus viewed runes as holy or magical in a kabbalistic sense, the study of runes was continued by Olof Rudbeck Sr (1630–1702) and presented in his collection Atlantica. Anders Celsius (1701–1744) further extended the science of runes and travelled around the whole of Sweden to examine the runstenar (runestones). From the "golden age of philology" in the 19th century, runology formed a specialized branch of Germanic linguistics.

Body of inscriptions[edit]


The largest group of surviving Runic inscription are Viking Age Younger Futhark runestones, commonly found in Denmark and Sweden.[42] Another large group are medieval runes, most commonly found on small objects, often wooden sticks, the largest concentration of runic inscriptions are the Bryggen inscriptions found in Bergen, more than 650 in total. Elder Futhark inscriptions number around 350, about 260 of which are from Scandinavia, of which about half are on bracteates. Anglo-Saxon futhorc inscriptions number around 100 items.

Modern use[edit]



Germanic mysticism and Nazi symbolism[edit]

Runic script on an 1886 gravestone in Parkend, England
From 1933, Schutzstaffel unit insignia displayed two Sig Runes


Modern neopaganism and esotericism[edit]


The Uthark theory originally was proposed as a scholarly hypothesis by Sigurd Agrell in 1932; in 2002, Swedish esotericist Thomas Karlsson popularized this "Uthark" runic row, which he refers to as, the "night side of the runes", in the context of modern occultism.


In J. R. R. Tolkien's novel The Hobbit (1937), the Anglo-Saxon runes are used on a map to emphasize its connection to the Dwarves. They also were used in the initial drafts of The Lord of the Rings, but later were replaced by the Cirth rune-like alphabet invented by Tolkien, used to write the language of the Dwarves, Khuzdul. Following Tolkien, historical and fictional runes appear commonly in modern popular culture, particularly in fantasy literature, but also in other forms of media such as video games (for example the 1992 video game Heimdall used it as "magical symbols" associated with unnatural forces).


Runic Steel Stamps, Elder Futhark


The Unicode block for Runic alphabets is U+16A0–U+16FF, it is intended to encode the letters of the Elder Futhark, the Anglo-Frisian runes, and the Younger Futhark long-branch and short-twig (but not the staveless) variants, in cases where cognate letters have the same shape resorting to "unification".


Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
1.^ As of Unicode version 11.0
2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

See also[edit]




  2. ^ Stoklund 2003, p. 173.
  3. ^ "Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language". LKZ. Retrieved 2010-04-13. 
  5. ^ Nykysuomen sanakirja: "riimu"
  6. ^ Häkkinen, Kaisa. Nykysuomen etymologinen sanakirja
  7. ^ Mees 2000.
  8. ^ Odenstedt 1990.
  9. ^ Williams 1996.
  10. ^ Dictionary of the Middle Ages (under preparation), Oxford University Press, archived from the original on 2007-06-23 .
  11. ^ Markey 2001.
  12. ^ G. Bonfante, L. Bonfante, The Etruscan Language p. 119
  13. ^ a b Looijenga 1997.
  14. ^ Weisgerber 1968, pp. 135, 392ff.
  15. ^ Weisgerber 1966–1967, p. 207.
  16. ^ Syrett 1994, pp. 44ff.
  17. ^ Penzl & Hall 1994b, p. 186.
  18. ^ a b Antonsen 1965, p. 36.
  20. ^ a b "Hávamál", Norrøne Tekster og Kvad, Norway, archived from the original on 2007-05-08. 
  21. ^ Larrington 1999, p. 37.
  23. ^ MacLeod & Mees 2006, pp. 100–01.
  24. ^ Page 2005, p. 31.
  25. ^ Foote & Wilson 1970.
  26. ^ Foote & Wilson 1970, p. 401.
  27. ^ MacLeod & Mees 2006.
  28. ^ McDermott, Larissa (2016). Runes. Lulu Press. p. 70. Retrieved 2018-05-22. 
  29. ^ William, Gareth (2007). West over Sea: Studies in Scandinavian Sea-Borne Expansion and Settlement Before 1300. Brill Publishers. p. 473. Retrieved 2018-05-22. 
  32. ^ Larrington 1999, p. 25.
  33. ^ a b Larrington 1999, p. 34.
  35. ^ Page 2005, pp. 8, 15–16.
  37. ^ Jacobsen & Moltke 1942, p. vii.
  38. ^ Werner 2004, p. 20.
  39. ^ Werner 2004, p. 7.
  40. ^ Brix, Lise (May 21, 2015). "Isolated people in Sweden only stopped using runes 100 years ago". ScienceNordic. 
  42. ^ de Gruyter, Walter (2002). The Nordic Languages, Volume 1. p. 700. Retrieved 2018-05-22. 


  • Foote, P. G.; Wilson, D. M. (1970), The Viking Achievement, London: Sidgwick & Jackson, p. 401, ISBN 0-283-97926-7 .
  • Jacobsen, Lis; Moltke, Erik (1942), Danmarks Runeindskrifter, Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaards 
  • Larrington, Carolyne (1999), The Poetic Edda, Oxford World's Classics, translated by Larrington, ISBN 0-19-283946-2 .
  • Markey, TL (2001), "A Tale of the Two Helmets: Negau A and B", Journal of Indo-European Studies, 29: 69–172 
  • Williams, Henrik (1996), "The Origin of the Runes", Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik, 45: 211–18 

External links[edit]