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.
Freyr's aett
Heimdall's aett
Tyr's aett
Upright, reversed, and the nine that cannot flip
A stone can land with its glyph upside down. Reversed readings describe the same meaning blocked, delayed or turned inward. Nine runes are symmetrical and read the same either way: Gebo, Hagalaz, Nauthiz, Isa, Jera, Eihwaz, Sowilo, Ingwaz, Dagaz. If a reader gives you a "reversed Isa", they're 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.