Runes: twenty-four letters, three families
The Elder Futhark as an alphabet first, then as a tool.
What they are
The Elder Futhark is the oldest runic alphabet, used across Germanic Europe from roughly the second to the eighth century. Twenty-four straight-line letters, carved into wood, bone and stone — straight because curves are hard to cut. The name comes from the first six letters: F, U, Th, A, R, K.
Each rune has a name that is a real word: cattle, aurochs, giant, god, ride, torch. The divinatory meanings come from those words and from a few surviving rune poems. Anything more specific than that is a modern reader's interpretation — including ours.
This diagram is drawn live in the app, on your own chart.
Upright, reversed, and the nine that cannot flip
A stone can land with its glyph upside down. Reversed readings describe the same energy blocked, delayed or turned inward. Nine runes are symmetrical — Gebo, Hagalaz, Nauthiz, Isa, Jera, Eihwaz, Sowilo, Ingwaz, Dagaz — and read the same either way. If a reader gives you a "reversed Isa", they are improvising.
Casting
A single answer to a single question, or the tone of the day. Most useful, least dramatic.
What was, what is, what comes — or situation, obstacle, path. The three are read as one sentence, not three verdicts.
- 1Ask one question you actually want answered. "Should I text him" is a question; "what about my life" is not.
- 2Draw without looking. The order you draw is the order you read.
- 3Read the literal word first (cattle, ice, torch), then the meaning. The word keeps you honest.
- 4Write the cast down. Reading it a week later is where the learning happens.
Which of these runes cannot be read reversed?
Isa is a single vertical line — it looks the same upside down. Fehu and Ansuz have branches and can flip.