Underrated and Inspiring Folklore and Mythologies

[Mad Swede]

They were typically only used to write charms on items or for memorial stones or perhaps place an owners name on stuff. When used in magic they form part of the enchantment & in that sense they were magical - but I dare say only when inscribed as part of a spell/ritual. The memorial / commemorative stuff may or may not have had any magical significance depending on the context (and the fact we don't really know for sure in what contexts it may have been intended to carry some magical or spiritual significance). Since some inscriptions date to Christian times, it is more likely that those were not intended to have any magical significance. The Franks Casket inscriptions are Christian for instance (and use a mix of runes, Latin and Old English). In that context they certainly weren't any more 'magical' than the Latin and Old English used alongside them - but things like the Franks Casket are post pagan.

However runes were not used to write extensive paper records, or write anything as substantial as a chronicle or any other extensive work in the same way Latin was used in the early Middle Ages. This may be a limitation of not having paper, or perhaps it was simply a cultural convention that they were only used to engrave metal, wood, stone or ivory etc. There are no extensive Old Norse myths / stories that survive in runic form from the Viking age, except for perhaps short/fleeting references - all that stuff was transmitted orally by the skalds & if it weren't for the likes of Snorri Sturluson deciding to write it all down in the thirteenth century most if it would be lost to us.

OK. Where to begin without causing offence.

Runes were used for writing both formal and everyday texts in Denmark, Sweden and Norway from the first century until the sixteenth century. There are several major legal documents written in runes. One of the best known examples is the so-called Codex Runicus, which was written in the period 1275-1300 and lists the law and boundaries as they then were in Skåne.

Codex Runicus (complete)

The furthark (in simple English, the runic alphabet) changed as languages developed, and there are three major versions known. The replacement of runes by the the latin alphabet was very gradual and here in Sweden runes were used until the middle of the nineteenth century in Dalarna and Hälsingland. See Svenska språket under sjuhundra år by Gertrud Pettersson for a full academic dissertation on the subject.

 

[Finchbearer]

This is interesting I have used runes for rune stones in my works, where rune stones are worn around the necks of the ‘gifted’ - so the rune stones in my world are a tool for communication, rather than magical themselves.

 

[Puck]

Runes were used for writing both formal and everyday texts in Denmark, Sweden and Norway from the first century until the sixteenth century. There are several major legal documents written in runes. One of the best known examples is the so-called Codex Runicus, which was written in the period 1275-1300 and lists the law and boundaries as they then were in Skåne.

Yes but documents like the Codex Runicus are the product of a medieval Christian culture. I am talking about runes as they were used in the pagan Viking Age (pre-1000 CE), not during later medieval times. Codex Runicus can't be used as an example of how runes were used by pagan Norse cultures.

 

[Mad Swede]

Yes but documents like the Codex Runicus are the product of a medieval Christian culture. I am talking about runes as they were used in the pagan Viking Age (pre-1000 CE), not during later medieval times. Codex Runicus can't be used as an example of how runes were used by pagan Norse cultures

You're simply wrong. The way in which runes were used didn't change in the period we are talking about - runes were a script for writing things, particularly messages. The thing is, most of what was written was carved into wood or bark (sometimes bone) and it hasn't survived. There are fragments though, and here in Sweden the biggest collections of fragments have been found in and around Birka, Sigtuna and Lödöse.

But as I wrote earlier, try reading Svenska språket under sjuhundra år by Gertrud Pettersson for a full academic dissertation on the subject of language and writing in Sweden.

 

[Prince of Spires]

Some of the oldest known grafiti uses viking runes: Runic inscriptions in Hagia Sophia. Esimates give something like 800AD for those. If it's good enough to use to carve your name into a church, then I think it's safe to assume people didn't consider everything they wrote with them magical or sacred.

I agree with Mad Swede 's suggestion that just because it hasn't survived to today doesn't mean that it didn't exist. Scandinavia isn't really the ideal place to store wooden or even paper documents for centuries.

 

[Puck]

We don't really have anything like a chronicle or saga or anything of any significant length written in Runes that can be definitively dated to pagan Norse times. The Eddas are (though thirteenth century) possibly based on earlier written material that survived in the C13th but did not last longer. Some people think they are more likely to be a record of what survived to that time of an oral tradition. Thus the reason that we find no chronicle type material or earlier copies or sagas or, indeed, any books, was down to the strength and role of that oral tradition - a role not played by the runes themselves during the pagan age. There is no way to know for certain since you can't prove a negative. However, the Anglo-Saxons were creating books at a time when the Norse people were not (although, like their Norse cousins, they did not do so until after their conversion to Christianity).

As to whether or not the Runes themselves held any special power or significance when used in ritual magic (as opposed to an inscription on a memorial stone for example), academia is divided. Some, like Pettersson, would argue that the old Scandinavian / Germanic runes were just a language like any other, dismissing entirely any inherent association with any underlying magical or religious significance. However, there are other academics who disagree with her.

The Eddas (the earliest detailed records of Norse mythology) claim a divine origin for knowledge of the runes. They also claim a magical origin for the gift of poetic inspiration. You might take this to indicate that poetry, myths and writing held a special mystical / divine reverence in Old Norse culture. Alternatively, since the source for this was indeed a writer, you might perhaps be tempted to dismiss it as a writer bigging up his craft!

Whilst runes had a variety of uses (and certainly by Christian times they had a wide variety of uses), it is not possible to definitively say that they did not have an inherent association with divine or magical powers in pagan times. Clearly where an item is marked with a spell or with a prayer, it is intended to have a religious or magical significance. As to a memorial stone (of which there are a number of examples), it is harder to say, although we can say that these probably had some religious significance (as gravestones did in medieval times). Writing someone's name on an object may or may not have had any religious or magical significance, it is not possible to say for sure (probably not).

However, there are alternative views to those of Pettersson in the academic community. Here are a couple of links:

Runic Magic - Medievalists.net

Runic Amulets and Magic Objects: Amazon.co.uk: MacLeod, Mindy, Mees, Bernard: 9781843832058: Books

The first of these (Bishop's thesis) goes so far as to conclude that "runes were considered magical even if also utilized as an alphabetic script." I would kind of go along with this, from the point of view that I think the pagan Norse (and Germans and Anglo-Saxons) saw poetry, storytelling and (hence) writing as an inherently magical undertaking (or a process inspired by something magical or divine anyway ... unless it turned out rubbish of course).

Dr Mindy's book is probably the most comprehensive review of the use of German/Scandinavian runes in inscribing magical objects. She probably best summarises the current position of academia on the subject of runes - "the first law of runic studies is that for every inscription the shall be as many interpretations as there are runologists studying it." She does not go so far as Bishop in seeing the runes as inherently magical in all situations but does argue in favour of them having a special magical significance when used on amulets, magic and cultic objects.

 

[Mad Swede]

Puck please bear in mind that Christianity wasn't established in Sweden until the middle of the eleventh century and it took another two hundred years until the whole country was Christian - and even then it wasn't a single kingdom. So the Norse pagan period is rather longer than many think.

The idea that runes were mostly used for inscribing magical spells doesn't match the archeological evidence. The earliest runic inscriptions to survive are on a comb from the middle of the second century, and they seem to show the name of the owner. This is true of most of the early runic inscriptions found. Later, runes appear on runestones, used to acclaim the achievements of whoever the stone was commemorating (there is one 600 meters from the desk where I'm sitting now). What is most interesting about runestones is what they imply about literacy in the Nordic countries - there must have been a significant number of people who could read the runes, otherwise there wouldn't be any point in paying someone to carve the stone. This theory is supported by quite a lot of the archeological finds, including calendar sticks, messages and even parts of a love poem, all written in runes (the poem was found in Lödöse).

The daily use of runes for things like writing messages doesn't mean runes weren't used for inscribing magical items (like the stones used for divination), but the archeological evidence does not support the idea that runes were primarily intended for ritual use. In fact most scholars accept that runes are derived from one of the Old Italic alphabets brought north by the Romans and were used for similar purposes.

Yes, Odin was said to have gained his knowledge of the runes when he fell from Yggdrasil into the Well of Urd, and it was also said that the Norns (Urd, Verdandi and Skuld) wrote the lives and fates of people by carving their story (in runes) into the tree. But using that as an argument that the runes are primarily magical is rather like arguing that spinning wool thread is magical simply because the Moirai (the Fates: Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos) spun, measured and cut the thread of life.

 

[NJMitchel]

I have been working on a project that is using some ancient Egyptian mythology. The amount of research that goes into doing these topics is insane. I have now read 3 books on ancient Egypt and have several more to go. I have also spent hours studying scholarly articles and information from museums. Even with all the work I have been doing I have barely scratched the surface. Since I am writing fiction, I am able to modify certain aspects of mythology to fit my story, but I also think it is important to pay homage to the source material.