I’ve been studying the runes for almost 20 years now. I was in my freshman year of high school when I first stumbled across these mysterious symbols as I was doing research for a chemistry paper: a picture of a Viking-era sword whose blade was etched with a combination of “Isa”, “Nauthiz”, and “Tiwaz”. I didn’t know that at the time, of course. All I knew was that they called to me. Reached out to me from that CD-ROM and dared me to understand what it meant. I’ve done what I could over the past 20 years to answer that dare.
During that period of time I’ve seen many ebbs and flows in the direction of the studies of the masses into runes and rune-lore. I’ve tried some of them on, and dismissed others out-of-hand. From those chintzy pewter necklaces based on the Blum book in the eighties, to the quasi-neo-nazi symbolistic revival of Asatru as the “true religion”, to the scholarly advances of Edred Thorsson and everything in between. While I wouldn’t say that every attempt has been without merit, not one attempt has contained enough real truth for my satisfaction.
If you’re reading this and are close to the study of rune-lore, this is where you will point out that since we have so few primary source materials about the original study of runes, we will never come close to the truth. Maybe you’ll say that what we have is a good enough approximation that we can get by with it. I won’t disagree with you outright. I will challenge, however, that out of all of those attempts, little has been done to relate our studies of runes to the daily culture of the originators. That’s not to say we haven’t accounted for differences in semantic meanings, but I believe we’ve not come very far in understanding and then transposing original meanings into contemporary culture.
For example, fehu’s meaning as money, mobile wealth, cattle is certain. We have reference to as much within the runic poems, the etymology of the word “fee” can be traced back to “feoh” which is a derivative of the proto-Germanic “fehu”. Good. However, what we haven’t done is a good enough job of interpreting the originating culture’s concept of money for our contemporary age. Instead, we’ve tried to glom some quasi-supported esoteric “creative energy in the multiverse” meaning to fehu which doesn’t make any sense. That’s the equivalent of saying that the concept of mobile property, money, cattle, etc. brought to mind the creative energy of the multiverse to a 7th century godi. Seriously? Since when does the power to barter bring to mind a mythological creation of time?
What I’m advocating is not a cease and desist on meditative practices or individual understanding of runes. I’m advocating an increase in intensity the anthropological/sociological research into the cultures who used the runes in order to understand how they applied to them. By doing so, we can then use our meditative practices to interpret their meaning to us in the 21st century.
I’m referring specifically to Edred Thorsson’s book “Futhark” and the website runesecrets.com. I have a copy of Thorsson’s book and have perused RuneSecrets. While I don’t hold any ill will towards either site — there is good information within both — I tend to have more faith in the approach of the Rune Net group. A tempered and historically-driven search for evidence of mystical meaning that is then backed by the meditative findings of the individual. That’s all I ask.
I’d love to assist you however I could. However, at Rune Secrets, tho I haven’t written it down anywhere, I have little choice but to go with a contemporary view. I can try to explain why…
First, I disagree with you that there has not been a tempered and historically-driven search for evidence oriented around the runes. Scientific in terms of sociological, anthropological, historical. However, contemporary science is not particularly interested in ‘the mystical’, whether it’s contemporary or ancient. You won’t find the scientific community accepting that kind of ‘speculation’, not in depth.
Second, there isn’t that much evidence LEFT for us to go on. A few anglo-saxon poems, some large carved stones, various artifacts. It is a real shortage of evidence, and gives us a real shortage of relics, artifacts and records to base our modern interpretations on. The cultures involved, germanic, Norse, Scandinavian, etc. migrated over vast tracts of land, periods of time and had many differences between them. Within those periods, the culture evolved. But they didn’t keep written records like the greeks or romans… it was an oral tradition, which at various points was actively assimilated and stamped out by the roman empire and religious agenda.
So what is left to go on?
Well, there is a trend in mysticism that is reassuring here, and that is that whether you’re looking at christian mystics, jewish, islamic, eastern as in zen, buddhism or taoism… certain truths and observations about the nature of the human experience and the universe come up. Parallels can be drawn. It suggests that within each of us is access to a particular experience that has been accessible to all human beings within this phase of our evolution.
So, with scant evidence, we may have enough, if we are willing to search deeply within and look for parallels in other cultures, to reconstruct a working, living rune system that is of use.
There is also, because of this, a delightful necessity for the individual interested deeply in the runes and a mystical or magical system (or in my case, a more contemporary psychological system) to go it on his or her own. You have no choice really. There’s not enough evidence, not enough scholars who are able to access mystical experience, and not enough authors or websites to satisfy your curiosity or dedication. You can ask all you want for this tempered, historically-driven search… some people have also asked for that… and they’ve had to go out and do it themselves! Who is more qualified to produce the object of your desire than yourself?
Certainly, I agree that we are unlikely to find the answers we need in the works of others — only hints. I am happy if my interpretations provoke thought, but really I am developing the Rune Secrets system for myself. It will never fit, straight out of the box, onto another individual — it is an expression of my own collected research, intuition and meditations. How can you expect it to be valid for you, in its entirety?
I think that some people do expect other people’s systems to work for them, and they end up forming groups, like Asatru, and make a community after it… but what about the solitary seeker?
I leave the question to you. If you’d like to publish any of your sociological or anthropological findings, I’d be happy to let you post as a guest on Rune Secrets. But the nature of my work there is not formally anthropological or sociological. I am much more interested in the points where magic and mysticism converge with contemporary psychology.
Good luck in your search!
-Tyriel, of Rune Secrets
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