Selenarium · Runes
Runes and their meanings
The Scandinavian Elder Futhark: twenty-four signs, three aettir, fifteen hundred years behind them. Dug out of the ground rather than invented yesterday. I will tell you what each rune means, upright and reversed.
The Elder Futhark: what this set is
The Elder Futhark is the oldest runic set, the one Germanic peoples wrote and cast lots with fifteen hundred years before us. The twenty-four runes fall into three aettir, three groups of eight, and each one carries the name of a god: Freyr, Heimdall and Tyr.
Half the set reverses, and in those runes the upright and the reversed readings differ. Eight are symmetrical and have no reversed position, though they do have a shadow side, the dark edge of their own force.
The aett of Freyr
The aett of Heimdall
The aett of Tyr
FAQ
What are runes?
An old Germanic script where every sign is a letter, an image and a force at once. The set of twenty-four is called the Elder Futhark, after its first six signs. People cast lots with them long before tarot existed.
How do you read runes?
You hold a question and draw one rune blind, from a bag or a handful. The one that comes up is the answer, and half of the set also has a reversed reading. For something more tangled you draw three: what was, what is, what comes.
Why do some runes reverse and others do not?
Eight of the twenty-four are symmetrical, so turning them leaves the same sign and they have no reversed position. Gebo, Isa, Sowilo and a few others read the same both ways. The rest do change from upright to reversed.
Runes or tarot, which should I choose?
They are two languages about the same thing. Cards speak in pictures and stories, runes speak shorter and drier, in a single sign. Some people hear the deck's tale, others feel the strike of a rune. Try both and listen for which one lands.
A rune speaks short. A card speaks long. Walk the arcana too and listen for which one lands.
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