Reading Room · Fortune-Telling Methods · Method
Were runes really used to tell fortunes?
Rune casting is a divination method in which runes are thrown, laid out or read to seek guidance. Sources show fortune-telling uses in later and modern practice, while the earliest evidence for runes is mainly for writing and inscriptions; the link to Viking-age fortune-telling rests on later sagas and folklore.
Facts checked on against 14 sources, 8 of them museum, university, archive, library, government or primary texts.
Key facts
Every line comes from a source listed at the bottom of the page. The small numbers point to it.
| c. 200–700 | Elder Futhark inscriptions appear on bracteates, stones and weapons across Scandinavia and the Continent, some carrying names, some the word alu, and some apparent charms.123 |
|---|---|
| Viking Age (c. 800–1050) | Most of the more than 6,000 known Viking Age rune stones were created as memorials, self-promotion and expressions of religious belief.2 |
| Medieval period | Folk songs of the late medieval period mention rune casting as a way to gain a girl's attention and love.4 |
| 13th century | The Egil Skallagrimsson saga records magical runes carved on whalebone and placed in a sick woman's bed, which Egil burned and replaced with a new carving.56 |
| 17th century | Icelandic authorities tried to ban rune use, which the Church linked with witchcraft and paganism.7 |
What the early runic record shows
Historians describe the early runic record as mainly about writing and inscriptions: the runic alphabet was initially 24 runes and by the Viking Age had 16 letters, with some runes representing several sounds.8
Birgit Sawyer's study of over 3000 runic inscriptions on stone from late Viking Age Scandinavia finds that virtually all Viking-Age rune-stones reflect inheritance claims, and that many were declarations of faith or manifestations of status.9
Magic, folklore and the sagas
Jan Fries writes that for many centuries the use of runes was restricted to members of the priesthood, who used them to write, to divine, to bind spells, and to work magick.6
The Egil's saga passage places the magical carving of runes into a horn and the rubbing of blood over them, a custom Fries calls bloten.6
Krueger's book Myths of the Rune Stone concerns the Kensington Rune Stone, which experts quickly challenged and ultimately undermined as a hoax.9
What the tradition holds
How practitioners describe it, in their terms. Described, not endorsed.
Some modern writers describe Norse rune divination as a way to consult wyrd and receive guidance from the gods, unlike fortune-telling in the modern sense.10
Among modern Norse Pagan practitioners, making one's own runes, called risting, is a custom, and in some modern Pagan traditions divination is done by casting runes.11
Practitioners and popular books now cast runes in spreads such as the Three-Rune Spread, also known as the Norn layout; these spreads are modern, not attested historical methods.12
What the evidence shows
What historians, scientists and controlled tests have found.
Runology scholar Karen Langsholt Holmqvist says runes are short pieces of text whose meanings depend heavily on context, and that in medieval Norway most runes carried phrases, names and well-known texts.13
The National Museum of Denmark states that runic magic seems more of a Medieval and Early Modern invention than a Viking-Age fact, and that most runic inscriptions carry down-to-earth messages.4
Some inscriptions and sagas refer to rune magic, but a magical context does not demonstrate that the claimed effect occurred.114
Worked out from the evidence
Not stated outright by any one source. It is worked out from the sources cited.
- The earliest securely dated runic evidence concerns inscriptions and writing rather than fortune-telling, so a fortune-telling use of runes is best supported for later medieval and modern periods.1134
- Accounts of Viking-age rune casting for fortunes rest largely on sagas, Tacitus-style lot-casting comparisons and later writers, and historians differ on how far these reflect real practice.5104
Not yet confirmed
- How far did medieval rune staffs and folk customs reflect fortune-telling as opposed to love charms and curses?
- When did runes first come to be used for divination rather than writing and inscriptions?
Sources
Museums, universities, archives and primary texts first. Every fact is paraphrased and nothing is copied; Wikipedia is never cited.
- runedivination.com: The History of Runes - Rune Divination. Read on · Reference
- mpm.edu: Rune Stones | Milwaukee Public Museum. Read on · Museum
- worldhistory.org: Runes. Read on · Reference
- en.natmus.dk: Runic magic - National Museum of Denmark. Read on · Museum
- valhyr.com: Learn The Runes. Read on · Reference
- Internet Archive: Viking magic. Read on · Primary text
- archive.org: Full text of "A Beginner's Guide To Runes By Kristyna Arcart". Read on · Primary text
- historiskmuseum.no: The origin and development of runes - Historical Museum. Read on · Museum
- library.fiu.edu: Runes - Viking History and Society - FIU Libraries at Florida International University. Read on · University
- thewickedgriffin.com: Casting Runes How to Guide: Elder Futhark Rune Reading. Read on · Reference
- westportlibrary.libguides.com: Rune Casting: About. Read on · Library
- angelorum.co: How to Read the Runes - A Practical Guide for Beginners | Angelorum. Read on · Reference
- smithsonianmag.com: Archaeologists Discover—and Start to Decode—Rare Medieval Runes. Read on · Museum
- en.natmus.dk: Runic magic. Read on · Reference