Mother Earth School of Witchcraft Lesson #1 History Paper on Runes Shane Staten

A History of the Runes

The beginning of runic interpretation is what brought Runes to Northern Europeans around the first century A.D.; who, due to the alphabets first six letters called it FUTHARK. With this ability to decipher meaning and thousands of years of archeological research scientists have found that runes come from way before the beginning of the current era. There is one finding that reports runes being discovered as far back as 2000 B.C.E in Semetic language areas like Asia Minor and Palestine. The word Rune is originally rooted in the word Runa, defined as mystery or secret, and comes from the ancient Norsemen. The symbols themselves represented various, important aspects of life to the old Norse. For instance some markings were representations of Gods, some defined people, animals, happenings, and ideas. Originally runes were also used to represent bodily positions for worship with divine forces, or yoga like exercise. The symbols runes represent are the depicted manifestation of Diety and Nature, eternally representing discoverie and understanding for ages past, present, and future. Unlike the English language, The Scandinavians would write in various different formats. One such difference was the boustphedon, meaning one sentence went left to right and the next would go right to left or vice versa. There were also versions where the runes were inverted, read through a mirror only, or bound together with two letters being one. Runes were often written in one continuous string of letters; forexample. And if one were to break up words he would use a notation like+for+example. One interesting point of fact is that runes have only vertical lines and diagonal lines, no curves or horizontal ones. This is said to be because runes were predominantly carved on wood, and to avoid grain lines being mistaken for the lines of the rune symbols themselves. Unlike most known forms of writing the Runes have maintained their sense of sameness through the years; retaining all their magickal as well as literal meaning. At or around Ragnarok (the end of the world) Odin climbed Yggdrasil (the World Tree) and suspended himself for 9 days and nights, between the 9 worlds. While in suspension he received transmission of wisdom about the runes and their purposes, properties, and powers from the original source of oneness; the togetherness of all that is, was, or ever will be.

Sources:
Oswald the Runemaker: Origin of the Runes section - http://www.runemaker.com/history.shtml The History of the Runes - http://www.arild-hauge.com/history.htm
Little Giant Encyclopedia

Runes by Sirona Knight Published: 2008 pp. 15-34