The Mysterious Art of Divination: Runes, runes, runes

From what I gathered runes are like tarot but they do not tell the future. Runes are called futhark after the first six letters and it is the Old Norse alphabet.

If you want the history here's a place to read on it:http://www.omniglot.com/writing/runic.htm

Now some witches go extra fancy with their use of runes and use it as a secret language for their Book of Shadows or to make their spell have a little extra kick write it out in runes. Only problem with that the Rune alphabet is not like our own. They don't have the same letters we do, so beware of that.

Now talks of three different Rune languages the most common I know of is the one i use and have seen most every other witch use and it looks like this:

Elder Futhark

I like this one but if you don't like this one and don't want to look at the link I'll post the others as well.

Younger Futhork

Elder Futhark was evolved all through Viking Era until about 1200 where they, the Danish etc. switched to the Latin alphabet.

Danish Futhark

Swedish-Norwegian (Short twig/ Rok Runes)

Norwegian Futhark

Gothenburg (Bohuslan Runes)

Now the last type of runes are the Medieval runes according to the website I linked, after the arrival of Christianity for the Scandinavians, and their alphabet was latinised and used for decoration, and here it is:

How to Cast Runes

I like the idea you can cast however you want and really you can. I've seen witches who just do a 'morning throw'. A literal throw on their altar nothing special, but if you want to do an official rune casting this is how I do it based on information I've gathered and just like to do it.

Okay first of all I like peace and quiet which is hard to find in my house because I have four sisters and a nosy mother so I'd probably go outside where's there's natural energy from the plants in our backyard where it is also private. Facing North just like you would for a Circle Casting I'd find a smooth surface to cast on maybe a tiny table or board. I'd reach into my bag shake it up a little, mix it real good ad while thinking of the question I have I'd grab a handful and throw them seeing which way they face up(if they're face down and I can't see the sign I ignore it). Up is positive, down is negative, it's really simple. Now some people do this on the cloth/surface as a boundary I like free range I may even draw three circles to separate the runes as a timeline.

Another way is to pick a certain amount of runes ( a good reason why your runes should be the same size and shape so you don't recognize any) and put them in any tarot order but I'll post some here I read about.

Casting the Norns

The Norns are Norse goddesses because runes are Norse but they can also be interpreted as the Three Fates and etc.This is probably the most simple just pull out three and if they're facing down flip them sideways 'like the pages of a book'. And once you set them down in a row, it's basically past, present, and future going from left to right.

Nine-runes Cast

This gives an detailed overview of a person's situation and progress on their path. Nine is a magickal number in the Norse mythology. Pick nine runes, focus on your question, then throw them. Read face up these are your current situation, runes can be read just about anyway but runes in the center are immediately relevant, the ones on the far outside are fairly insignificant. This depends really on how you read it, it's about what comes to you. Runes that are face down represent outside or future influences and are possible outcomes.


But anyway this is something you'll have to read on the fore-mentioned website. I'm too lazy too paraphrase this. All information gathered in this post is from that particular website which practically walks you through interpreting runes. In a part two post for this I will give you the meanings of the runes.