"Ah, yes, yes. The Dalecarlian runes continued to be used until the early years of the twentieth century in the suburbs of Sweden. The province, which Mr. Odessa mentioned, was called, "last stronghold of the Germanic script"." The blackboard was writing. "The Dalecarlian is derived from medieval runes, but during the following centuries more and more individual runes were replaced with Latin characters. Until its last stage almost every rune had been replaced with a Latin letter, or influenced by Latin characters."

Speaking of medieval runes before! The professor nodded enthusiastically at the prefect and the snitch-catcher. "Yes! Correct. Basically the medieval runes, introduced after the end of the Viking Age, are the basis on which runology appeared in the 16th century." He then gestured to Summers who completed Castell's idea, "Despite being the fundamental ground for this science and other runic alphabets -that we mentioned before-, the medieval runes began to be threatened by the Latin letters by the beginning of the 13th century. However, this alphabet was revived once again when the medieval Scandinavian laws were written completely in runic."

"The three most used runic alphabets, yes." He smiled at everyone who gave an answer, even those who tried saying it. "The Elder Futhark being, as its name suggests, the oldest of them all. The general agreement dates the creation of the first runic alphabet to roughly the 1st century. Early estimates include the 1st century BC, and late estimates push the date into the 2nd century." He waved his cane for the blackboard to write down the key words he was saying. "There are 24 runes in Elder Futhark, and we're going to be focusing on this particular alphabet in our study." As usual.

"The Anglo-Saxon runes were used probably from the 5th century AD until about the 10th century, it's a child system of the Elder Futhark. It contains all 24 runes from the parent alphabet in addition to 5 more. But as Captain Montmorency mentioned, the Anglo-Saxon disappeared after the Norman conquest.

"Younger Futhork or "Normal Runes" gradually evolved the Elder Futhark over a period of many years and stabilized by about 800 A.D., the beginning of the Viking Age, and contained only 16 runes." He knocked on his desk a couple of times to wake those who dozed off before moving on, "Mr. Summers mentioned something about Medieval Runes previously. Pay attention, we're making connections between them now." Yes? Did he have to knock more? "The younger Futhark has three variants. The Danish long-branch runes, the Swedish-Norwegian short-twig runes, and lastly the staveless runes." Pause. "The use of this alphabet has significantly declined by 12th century."

Ooh. Hmm. "Yes, there is Hungarian runes. They're derived from the Old Turkic script, the one that miss Bishop and Mr. Jory mentioned, and it's usually written on sticks, alternating direction right to left then left to right, although the right to left direction was most common." It wasn't, however, as involved with evoking magic and energy.

Botros laughed lightly when the Ravenclaw prefect trailed away, "It is quite hard to follow all those dates and alphabets, huh? Well like Mr. Potter and Mr. McCarty said. There is the Gothic runes. The scholars have confirmed very few about it, what we know is that it's an extinct east Germanic language. They were invented by the Goths, but this is impossible to prove as very few inscriptions of writing in Gothic runes survive." He shrugged and held his cane closer to him. They should've picked an easier alphabet? He did appreciate the challenge-lovers though. Kudos to them both.

Hmm. Botros listened interestedly to the girl, nodding his head and knocking on the side of the desk as more snoring echoed from the last rows. "That is interesting, but it's not a runic alphabet as you have mentioned Ms. Dawnsel." See? He remembered her name!

"I do consider it a runic alphabet, yes. In fact, in a moment you'll see how the Old Italics is the father of all those runic alphabets we're talking about. One way or another." Botros was excited! Most of the students mentioned exactly what he wanted them to pay attention to!

Oh, wow. It was always the quiet ones that surprise you. Botros grinned widely at the little girl and nodded, "Correct. Very insightful input, indeed!" He was not going to get into details about that, mainly because it was very uncommon and required higher level teaching.

As long as they were not snoring, Botros gave them small smiles and encouraging nods to write down what they could understand so far.


"All you need to focus on from everything we've discussed is the following." He gave them a minute to write whatever they wanted from the blackboard before waving his cane, the words disappearing, and moving it again so that a new simpler tablet is drawn.



"Another question. What were runes used for? And which uses still live till today?" THAT should be an easier question. Guesses were accepted too.

ooc: - Try to talk about ONE particular use, please, to give the others a chance to participate. :)
- Class will resume in 12-17 hrs. Hang in there, the theoretical part is almost over!

"All you need to focus on from everything we've discussed is the following." He gave them a minute to write whatever they wanted from the blackboard before waving his cane, the words disappearing, and moving it again so that a new simpler tablet is drawn.

"Another question. What were runes used for? And which uses still live till today?" THAT should be an easier question. Guesses were accepted too.