runes – Pagan Roots

Rune Spreads

When laying out rune stones, there are almost as many different spreads as there are for Tarot cards. A few of the more popular ones are shown below. When laying out the runes you can draw them at random from a bag, so you can’t see what you’re picking or you can place them all face down, mixed up, on a table, and again choose at random.

Runes can appear reversed, as with Tarot cards, although not all users agree that a reversed rune should take on a different meaning. One practical reason for this is that some runes will appear the same upside down.

Elder Futhark Runes

The Elder Futhark is the oldest of the runic alphabet systems and was in use from the second to eighth centuries, before giving way to the Younger Futhark and Anglo-Saxon Futhorc. We don’t actually have any direct evidence for the names of these runes, but there have been reconstructions made using Proto-Germanic, Old Norse and Old English. What is known is that as well as being used as a writing system, runes were probably used for magic in some way from their earliest appearance.