So you've got a rune set. Maybe you picked it up at our booth, maybe somebody gave it to you, maybe it's been sitting in a drawer because you weren't sure where to start. Here's where to start.
First, a little honesty about history. The Roman writer Tacitus, around 98 CE, described Germanic tribes cutting a branch from a nut-bearing tree into slips, marking them with signs, and scattering them across a white cloth. The priest, or the head of the household for private questions, would pray, look to the sky, pick up three slips, and read them by their marks. Whether those marks were runes, nobody can say for certain. The oldest runic inscriptions we have come a little later. But modern rune reading draws on that picture, and it's a good one to keep in mind.
Before you start
- A quiet space. You don't need candles and incense, though they don't hurt. You need a few minutes where nobody's yelling about where their shoes are.
- A cloth. A plain cloth gives the runes somewhere clean to land. Tacitus mentions white; any color works. An altar cloth does the job.
- A clear question. "What do I need to know about this job offer?" works better than "what's going to happen?" Runes answer the question you ask, so ask a good one.
Some practitioners bless or hallow a new set before using it. That's between you and your gods; there's no single right way.
Method 1: The single rune pull
The simplest reading and the best way to learn. Keep your runes in a bag, hold your question in mind, reach in, and draw one. That's it. Sit with it. What's the rune's meaning, and what does it say about your question?
A lot of people do this every morning as a daily draw. Pull one rune, think on it through the day, and write down what happened that night. Do that for a month and you'll know the runes better than any book could teach you.
Method 2: The three-rune spread
Draw three runes and lay them left to right. A spread that fits the tradition well is the Norns' spread, named for the three women who tend the roots of Yggdrasil and shape fate:
- Urðr: what has been. The roots of the situation.
- Verðandi: what is becoming. Where things stand now.
- Skuld: what shall be. Where things are headed if nothing changes.
Another common version is situation, challenge, and guidance. Read each rune on its own, then step back and read the three together. The story they tell as a group usually matters more than any one of them.
Method 3: Casting
This is the one people picture when they hear "rune casting." Lay out your cloth. Hold your question, take the whole set or a handful in both hands, and scatter them across the cloth.
Readers handle a cast differently. Many read only the runes that land face up and let the face-down ones rest. Some pay attention to where runes fall: close to the center as most important, near the edges as background. Others follow Tacitus more closely and, after the cast, pick up three without looking. Try a few ways and keep what speaks to you.
What about upside-down runes?
Some readers treat a reversed rune, called merkstave, as a blocked or shadow version of its meaning. Others read every rune upright no matter how it lands. Both approaches are modern, and both are fine. Just know that about nine runes look the same either way up, so they can't be reversed at all.
A few tips from the booth
- Don't keep re-asking. Pulling again because you didn't like the answer isn't a reading. It's an argument.
- Keep a journal. Write the question, the runes, and what you made of them. Patterns show up fast.
- Learn one at a time. Twenty-four meanings is a lot to memorize. Twenty-four mornings is not.
New to runes altogether? Start with what runes are and choosing your first set, then browse our rune sets in antler, stone, resin, and wood.