An Introduction to the Elder Futhark

The runes are magical symbols that convey the story of creation, life, destruction and rebirth. These forces constantly occur on many levels of being and are present in all aspects of magic. Runes provide an outlet for natural magic, though the magic itself is limited by the symbolic meaning of any individual rune, or the meaning of any one rune in relation to another set in ligature. The Elder Futhark runes were initially a series of sounds, incantations and postures used to communicate with others, connect with nature and the elements, and to focus magical intent. Gradually people identified these sounds, incantations and postures with specific signals or symbols which became concepts that could be transcribed or written down, or invoked with lasting magical power.

Rune comes from the root run- meaning "secret" or "whisper". In Old Norse, run means "mystery." In old Irish and Scotch Gaelic, run means "secret" or "mysterium," as does rhin in Middle Welsh. The root run- can also be found in the Baltic languages meaning "speech". In Lithuanian, runoti has two meanings: "to cut (with a knife)" or "to speak". The word "Rune" is to "Futhark" as "Letter" is to "Alphabet". That is, a Rune is one of the symbols that make up the Futhark, just as a letter is one of the symbols that makes up the Alphabet. The name "Futhark", like the word "Alphabet", is derived from the first few letters in the runic sequence. This sequence is different from that of the Latin Alphabet and is unique in its own right compared to other writing systems.

Consisting of 24 runes, beginning with F and ending with O, the Elder Futhark was used by the Germanic tribes of Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Northern Germany. The best known runic systems are the Elder Futhark, the Anglo-Saxxon Futhorc, and the Younger Futhark. Runes were eventually replaced with the Latin alphabet and have only been 'rediscovered' by mugglekind as recently as 1865 when Norewegian Scholar Sophus Bugge managed to decipher Elder Futhark inscriptions. While some Muggles are nominally aware of the magical nature of the Elder Futhark runes, their non-magical blood cannot truly activate the magic, much as they are unable to use a wand for magical purposes.

The use of the Elder Futhark Runes is threefold; Communication, Divination and Invocation. These three uses of Runes are covered in later chapters.