Runes guide

Runes are the letters of the early Germanic peoples. Scryway uses the oldest complete set, the Elder Futhark: 24 runes, named after the sounds of its first six (f, u, th, a, r, k). It was in use from around the 2nd to the 8th century AD, carved on weapons, jewellery, tools and stones. This guide keeps two things apart throughout: what the historical evidence shows, and how runes are used for divination today.

Historical evidence

• Inscriptions. A few hundred Elder Futhark inscriptions survive, most of them short: names, maker’s marks, and some words whose purpose is debated. The full row of 24 appears on the Kylver stone from Gotland (around AD 400); the order of a few runes varies between early inscriptions.
• Names. No source records the Elder Futhark’s own rune names. The names used here (Fehu, Uruz…) are scholarly reconstructions from later Old English and Norse names, so some (notably Perthro and Algiz) are uncertain.
• The rune poems. Three medieval poems give a short verse for each rune name: the Old English Rune Poem (known from a 1705 printing; the manuscript burned in 1731), the Norwegian Rune Rhyme (13th century) and the Icelandic Rune Poem (15th century). The Norse poems cover the 16-rune Younger Futhark that replaced the Elder in Scandinavia. They were written in Christian times and explain names; they are not divination manuals. Each rune’s page quotes them in the original languages.
• Divination. The Roman historian Tacitus (Germania 10, AD 98) describes Germanic peoples cutting a branch into slips, marking them with signs, scattering them on a white cloth and picking up three to interpret. He does not say the signs were runes, and no early source describes reading runes in the way practised today.
• The three aettir. The division into three rows of eight is attested; the names Freyr’s, Hagal’s and Tyr’s aett come from later tradition.

Modern divination

Rune divination as practised now took shape in the 20th century. Early-20th-century German occult writers built rune systems of their own, some bound up with nationalist ideology, and runes were later appropriated by the Nazis; Scryway uses none of that material. Much current practice traces instead to popular books from the 1980s onwards, notably Ralph Blum’s The Book of Runes (1982), which also introduced the blank rune.

The modern interpretations on Scryway are original summaries of meanings common in present-day practice, written for this site. They are labelled “Modern interpretation” wherever they appear, separate from the historical notes. The blank rune is not included: it is a modern addition and not one of the 24.

Reversals

Reading runes reversed (sometimes called 'merkstave') is a modern convention with no early source. With reversals on, each reversible rune lands upright or reversed with equal chance. Nine runes (Gebo, Hagalaz, Naudiz, Isaz, Jera, Eihwaz, Sowilo, Ingwaz, Dagaz) look the same either way up and are always read upright. Reversals are off by default and you choose them for each draw; the setting is saved with the draw.

Drawing

Runes are drawn without replacement: a rune appears at most once in a draw, and each remaining rune is equally likely, using your device’s cryptographic random generator. You can also record a draw made with your own set, choosing each rune and its orientation. Saved draws keep the runes, orientations, question and the text shown, and cannot be edited afterwards; your interpretation and later reflections go in the journal.

Spreads

All of these layouts are modern conventions.

• Single rune: One rune for the day or for a question. Positions: the rune.
• Three runes (the Norns): A modern spread named after the three Norns of Norse myth, who are associated with what has been, what is becoming and what shall be. The association is modern; no early source describes it as a rune practice. Positions: what has been, what is becoming, what may be.
• Five-rune cross: A modern layout in a cross: the centre is the situation, with past and future either side and the ground and the outcome below and above. Positions: the situation, the past, the future, the foundation, the outcome.