/r/runes
Your source for the discussion of runes, the native script of the ancient Germanic language-speaking peoples.
Verið velkomin!
r/runes is a subreddit for academic discussion of historic runic alphabets & runology.
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- Rules -
We have 7 rules in r/runes. Breaking any of these rules may force us to remove your comment, or post. Repeat or blatant rule breaking will result in a permanent ban.
Do NOT private message or use reddit chat to contact moderators about moderator actions. Only message the team via modmail. Directly messaging individual moderators may result in a ban.
Rule 0. Mod discretion always applies. We may remove content that is technically allowed under the rules if the team has good reason to believe it is detrimental to the community. Conversely, if something technically breaks the rules but we deem it beneficial to the community, we may choose to leave it up.
Please remember, you access this subreddit at the discretion of the mod team, and all rules are enforced at the mod team’s discretion. Moderators reserve the right to remove any content they deem harmful to the sub.
Rule 1. Don't Be a Jerk - Be Respectful. Follow Reddit's Rules and "Reddiquette".
This sub's core goal is to promote a friendly environment for all. Assume good faith and be kind to one another, we're all here to learn and discuss. Everyone should feel perfectly safe asking any on topic questions they may have.
We are lucky to enjoy an extremely friendly and supportive community, very seldom seeing serious disputes or fights. In the interests of maintaining this high standard, engaging in personal attacks or insults will not be tolerated. Disagreements are fine and indicative of a functioning discourse; name-calling and excessive nastiness are not. If you can't play nice, you're out of the pool.
Rule 2. No racism, promotion of pseudoscience, or bigotry.
Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, religious prejudices and other such bigotries have no place in this community and will not be tolerated. Usernames containing slurs, referring to acts of sexual violence, etc. are unacceptable here and will be banned on sight.
Rule 3. Produce quality sources for any and all historic claims.
r/runes is a subreddit for academic discussion of historic runic alphabets & runology. If you make a claim about the historic record, you must cite a reliable source backing your claim. This can be a notable runologist, a research paper, or something similar. This sub is not an echo chamber for misinformation.
Rule 4. No spam, low effort posts, unauthorized advertisements/(self) promotion, or NSFW content.
If you have something you'd like to promote, such as another subreddit, a podcast etc. you must contact the moderators before posting.
Rule 5. No translation requests.
This sub is intended for the scholastic discussion of runes, and can easily get cluttered with too many questions asking whether or not such-and-such is a rune or what it means etc. We ask that all questions regarding simple identification and translation be posted in r/RuneHelp instead of here, where kind and knowledgeable individuals will hopefully reply!
Rule 6. No modern religious topics.
We do not allow any discussion of modern religious topics here. r/runes is a subreddit that strives to be a community focused on learning, and studies runes from an etic perspective, meaning that we take a scholastic approach "from the perspective of one who does not participate in the culture being studied."
We ask that you post threads about modern religious practices elsewhere in more appropriate subs. Thank you!
Rule 7. No sigils or (early) modern symbols.
Despite of their enduring popularity in popculture, Icelandic sigils such as the végvísir and ægishjálmr do not originate in medieval Scandinavia. Both are in the tradition of early modern occultism arising from outside Scandinavia and were not documented before the 19th and the 17th century, respectively. As our focus lays on academic discussion of historic runic alphabets & runology, we ask that you post pictures and questions relating to these elsewhere, such as r/galdrastafir.
Further reading on how these symbols have little to no connection to the Norse or Viking period can be found here: ægishjálmr // vegvísir.
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Sidebar last updated on May 1st, 2024. Rules are subject to change at the mod team's discretion.
/r/runes
23,023 Subscribers
Modern interpretations of the Rök Runestone (video by historian Fredrik Ousbäck) in Swedish
18:56 UTC
Which runes are real or something? Vikings
When I search up runes (specifically viking runes) there are many different ones tho many of them stay the same or similar. Idk which ones were used or by who
14:36 UTC
Advice required about use of Icelandic runes.
Hi all,
A while back I created a thread on r/RuneHelp to ask advice on carving some runes in a public park in Iceland (https://www.reddit.com/r/RuneHelp/comments/1dcask1/looking_for_advice_on_rune_display_in_a_public/)
I want to carve ‘Here grew an aspen’ in an old tree trunk. The Icelandic for this phrase is ‘Hér óx ösp’.
The answer from r/RuneHelp was to use Young Furthark and write it like this:
ᛡᛁᚱ:ᚢᚴᛋ:ᛅᛋᛒ
I read a little further into thought that seeing there is some history of Icelandic runes, it would be best to carve using the native ones. I read Arild Hauge’s article and used the Icelandic alphabet given by Alexander R (https://www.omniglot.com/conscripts/icelandicrunic.htm#google_vignette) to create this:
ᚼᛂᚱ:ᛟᛪ: ᚯᛋᛔ
Hér óx ösp
Its very similar to the Younger Furthark, but I had a few questions.
1. Does this Icelandic version make sense?
2. The ᛂ rune for “é” is not the same as Alexander R guide, but this combination appears in many of Icelandic rune specimens, am I right to use this?
3. Does an example of the ᛪ rune (x) exist somewhere, I remember reading someplace that it was somewhat debatable?
4. The ᛟ rune for ó seems very different from the Young Furthark, is this correct?
Any advice is much appreciated.
02:28 UTC
The Numbers on the Famous Rökstone played on piano!
19:38 UTC
Were runes magical?
*Were runes used for magical purposes or believed to have been magical for old norse societies? I've seen some answers on here say that they were and that it's just unknown and others answer with hostility towards pagans and reconstructionists, which to put it politely is an asshole thing to do, but I'm not going to shut my ears and eyes.
23:50 UTC
Silesian Runes, urban mystery
For about 10 years, I have been spotting a set of symbols around one area of the Silesian agglomeration (Poland) on my daily walk to work. It never occurred to me to think twice about it, but after a while, I found another one about 40 minutes away on foot—so I got curious. I started to actively think about them and look for them. Sure enough, I found plenty more.
I know for a fact that they have been actively appearing for the past 10 years, as that was the first time I spotted them, and they are sometimes seen on new surfaces, such as a map pole. All of them except two were visibly done by the same hand, with the same spray. One of them (the freshest one I have spotted) was done in gold, and one of the oldest ones I believe to have been written with some organic matter, pushed into the porous surface of a white wall. The gold one is gone now.
The places where they appear have nothing in common, nor do they form any pattern on a map. From the way the spray was used, I can tell that it was not done by a graffiti artist as a form of tagging (the can was held stiffly, and the lines have no finesse). Honestly,
I looked online for quite a long time, and all I have ever found was a mention of a "spell" from a book of rather questionable credibility, published in 2019.
Does anybody have any ideas who it may be? What for? In connection to what? Where should I look for more information?
15:24 UTC
Kistastenen U 75
19:24 UTC
Renaissance inspired manuscript runic (Swedish + Icelandic ref)
Did not follow any actual historical standard, but rather tried to homogenize after the style of some rune variations found in both Swedish and Icelandic sources from around the 1500s to the 1700s. The quote is from Bionicle and in Swedish.
13:29 UTC
Is this an OK system to use for modern English into Futhorc?
20:15 UTC
Looks for resources
I'm looking for reputable authors and books that talk about the germanic/angelo-Saxon runes and that system of divination. I'd love to hear what you have to suggest. Ideally outside of the sphere of new-age wicca
03:00 UTC
Does anyone have volume 1 and 3 of Ursula Dronke's Poetic Edda translation?
I have the second volume but I cannot find the first and third one. I know the third one is basically impossible to find outside of a university library, but I've read somewhere that the electronic version of the first volume is possible to find somewhere, I just couldn't find it myself. I would greatly appreciate it if anyone had it and was willing to send it to me.
11:32 UTC
What would be the most accurate phonetic spelling of "tonight" in anglosaxon runes?
Her i've brainstormed some ideas:
ᛏᚢᚾᛁᛏ ᛏᚢᚾᛁᚷᛏ ᛏᚢᚾᛁᚷᚻᛏ or these same variants but with ᚢ replaced with ᚩ?
I was thinking it would be ᚢ more likely because you are saying "too" aka /u/ in the ipa as in "food" not /o/ as is "boat"
As for the spelling i was thinking the last one because when you say tonight you have the /j/ sound from gyfu and a slight /h/ sound from ᚻ. Am I correct in thinking this?
05:17 UTC
Anyone know what happened to the Runir converter app?
(Tagged as resource because it's a resource I use a lot.)
I'm on android and the Runir app wasn't converting things, everytime I pressed the button nothing would happen. I uninstalled the app, thinking it was a bug and went to reinstall it, only to find it's no longer on the Play Store.
So, I went to the website and even that seems bugged. Everytime I click "convert to runes" nothing happens.
Anyone know what happened?
I'll also tag u/k_runic just incase they aren't already aware of this.
21:05 UTC
Confused by the many different 'o's
The word is BOSS, which is traditionally accurate?
ᛒᚬᛋᛋ
ᛒᛟᛋᛋ
ᛒᚮᛋᛋ
ᛒᚩᛋᛋ
ᛒᚢᛋᛋ
21:32 UTC
A runic inscription I designed in memory of my father
Inscription reads,
simiun risti runaʀ þisaʀ aftiʀ iunas faþur sin
Simeon risti runaʀ þessaʀ æftiʀ Jonas, faður sinn
"Simeon carved these runes in memory of Jonas, his father"
I was aiming for something akin to Pr2/Pr3 in Gräslund's categorization of runestone styles, and used runic inscriptions around Mälaren in Sweden for inspiration
Also, I realize risti may not have been the best choice of word here, but I originally intended to actually carve this, I just hadn't found a good rock for it. So, I decided to repurpose it for a notebook cover for now. Perhaps faði would've been more appropriate there!
19:59 UTC
Friends, tell me the method of reading runic inscriptions. I know that it is written here in memory of the son of some noble man, and that he hopes that Thor will protect his son. But how and from where to read it is unclear to me
15:04 UTC
Upplands runinskrifter U 92
14:19 UTC
Upplands inskrifter U 92
19:38 UTC
Husbystenen U 74
14:52 UTC
Uppland Runic Inscription Fv1976 107
19:25 UTC
Examples of insults written in younger futhark?
I'm working on a comic set around 950-970. Now it's aimed at kids, so cursewords are out of the question, but I was thinking that using runes instead of the classic "curseword doodles" and thought I might as well put in some easter eggs that are at least close to historically accurate! Anyone know any classics?
13:49 UTC
Hello i wanna start learning runes
Hi, I'm interested in runes reading. I'm from the Slavic country and wanna learn reading them. If u have any good book or some tutorials fir that i will be happy.
06:13 UTC
Another one from the 101 series.
08:57 UTC
Does each rune rules over each year?
I came across "calculate your birthday" and it allowed me to look up my birth month and its corresponding rune. But is there a way to calculate which rune rules over this year 2024? And the next 2025?
03:01 UTC