Fertility, femininity, birth, and healing. Leadership, justice, battle, and masculinity. Tiwaz or Teiwaz – Tyr, one-handed lawgiver god.Honor, victory, wholeness, health, and thunderbolts. Feminine energy, dance, sexuality, mystery, or play and laughter. The World Tree Yggdrasil, enlightenment, balance, and death. Time cycles, completion, harvest, reaping rewards. Conflict, restrictions, self-reliance, willpower, and personal strength. Nature’s wrath, the overcoming of obstacles, being tested. Comfort, pleaure, success, kinship, and harmony. Generosity, balance, partnerships, spear, and exchange. Creativity, inspiration, vision, and improvement. Traveling, horse, journey, spontaneity, and god Thor. Inspiration, wisdom, understanding, and Odin himself. Untamed, wild power, strength, and freedom. Abundance, wealth, fertility, and success. According to the runestones, the 24 runes of the Elder Futhark are as follows: Used between the 2 nd and 8th century AD, as far as we can tell, the Elder Futhark was eventually replaced by the Younger Futhark. These 24 runes comprise the Elder Futhark, at least as we know it today. Very little is known about these runes that historians and scholars don’t even agree on the exact meaning and interpretation of many of them. It was found in Sweden, on the Kylver Stone from Gotland. The oldest discovered evidence of the Elder Futhark is dated to the early Migration Era of European history, between the 4 th and 5 th centuries AD. At least that’s how many archeologists and historians have managed to find. ![]() The Elder Futhark is comprised of 24 runes. ![]() What is the Elder Futhark? All the elder futhark Norse Runes Both are so named after their first six letters – F, U, Th, A, R, and K. That’s why most historians today recognize two distinct runic alphabets or Futharks, as they are called – the Elder Futhark and the Younger Futhark. With that evolution of Nordic culture, the runic alphabet evolved as well. The rapid rise of trade during the Viking Age between the 8 th and 11 th centuries saw the Nordic people spread and use their runes all across the continent and beyond. However, as time passed, they began to use their runes for more practical purposes just like the other cultures around them did. And, instead of using the letters for trade and communication, they used them to mark the graves of heroes, to honor their ancestors, or to predict the future. This runestone dates to around 400 AD but there are no written records that can tell us exactly when it was created.So, instead of writing their runes on parchment or animal leather, the Norse people carved them on stone, wood, and bone – hence the crude and sharp shapes of most Nordic runes. The first recorded use was found at a Viking settlement near Tängelgårda, Sweden. These ancient Norse runes have been found as far away as Iran, Turkey, England, and India. ![]() The first runes were carved into wood, bone, or stone and then painted with various colours to make them more visible. This writing system is believed to have originated from the Old Italic scripts: a variation of the North Italic (Etruscan or Raetic alphabets), or the Latin Alphabet itself. The Elder Futhark (or sometimes just “Futhorc”) is the oldest form of runic alphabet. The word “Futhark” is derived from the first six letters, which are called “Fehu,” “Uruz,” “Thurisaz,” “Ansuz,” “Raidho” and “Kennaz.” The Elder Futhark runes are a set of 24 symbols that were used for writing in Scandinavia and other parts of Northern Europe from about 200-800 AD. While there are many different types of runes, here I’ll be focusing on Elder Futhark. Writing itself was often seen as magic by other peoples who had no writing systems of their own. The word rune comes from an Old Norse term meaning a secret letter that was used for casting spells.
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