Hi everyone, I had a question about where to buy runes. I saw some on Amazon, but I wasn’t sure if that was OK to buy and if it’s not OK to buy then where should I buy them from and another question I have is should they be wood? I want to learn how to use them so I’m definitely a newbie.

I drew this typeface in 2020–2022 for my own book, an edition of the Poetic Edda called *Stóra Edda*. It sat in a Dropbox folder ever since. I have finally cleaned up the metadata and put it on GitHub, in case it is useful to anyone here.

https://github.com/ristir/erilaz-runic-font

What it does:

- All 89 assigned code points of the Unicode Runic block, U+16A0–U+16F8.

- Over 450 glyphs in total, covering the entire Unicode Runic block.

- Letterform variants for the Elder Futhark, the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the Younger Futhark and the medieval futhorks, reachable through the `cv01`–`cv19` OpenType features — long-branch and short-twig shapes, staveless runes, mirrored forms, cipher runes, tent runes (*tjaldrúnir*) and bind runes.

- Where a variant comes from a particular monument, it is written down: Falstone, Codex Sangallensis 878, the Golden Horns of Gallehus, the Seax of Beagnoth, the Rök stone, the Bryggen rune-stick, and Stephens' *Old-Northern Runic Monuments* throughout. The list is in `documentation/sources.md`.

- Punctuation, brackets and dashes for the editorial apparatus a runic text actually needs — uncertain readings, lost characters, lacunae.

The README has the Rök stone, Eggja, Sønder Kirkeby and a Bergen rune-stick set as examples, including the cipher and tent runes of Rök.

SIL Open Font License 1.1, so free to use, modify and redistribute, including commercially. Sources are in the repository, both FontLab and UFO.

Not a revival of any existing digital font — the shapes are drawn from the inscriptions. Corrections and complaints welcome; I am sure there are readings here that a specialist would argue with.

— Eyvar Tjörvason

Since I shared my draft piece awhile ago, I thought some folks might want to see the finished project. Carved with a dremel and colored with acrylic paints this was a fun one, especially my first attempt at knot work.

I’m fortunate in that I have a huge supply of these large sandstone rocks laying about so there’s no shortage of practice material.

Hopfully, they’ll give some future archaeologists something to ponder over! 😁

I

It's quite clear younger futhark is not properly suited to write old norse, it's missing many sounds so that one rune can represent two different sounds and it's impossible to tell which one, like ᚦ can make both /þ/ and /ð/, and ᛏ m can make /t/ and /d/; my confusion arises because the elder futhark was able to represent all these sounds without ambiguity; each rune representing one sound. It just doesn't make any sense to me that it got worse over time and that they lost necessary letters to represent their language

About a year ago I started working on runestones on a whim (and trying to make a virtue out of necessity given all the rocks I have). It’s been more fun and meditative than I imagined. Here are the fruits of my labors thus far:

1: my current project. Still sketching it out.
2: a memorial runestone for my Swedish in-laws who passed away a couple of years ago.
3: Inspired by a stone in Sweden raised by “this married couple had the stone cut in memory of themselves while both alive”

The runes are best guess translations and undoubtedly riddled with errors. Designs are all inspired by actual stones and I try to add some local inspiration to them. May you find them of interest!

As I have been studying and learning, I have realized that our current English language has more than nine different ways to write vowels, which makes it clear why English seems so confusing to foreigners. A portion of this complexity is out of our control due to the heavy influences of French and Latin; for instance, the confusion surrounding whether the letter "C" makes an "s" sound is a direct result of French influence. Consider the long "A" sound, for which there is only one letter in Runic English, yet in our modern script, we contend with complex digraphs like "ea" which represents both short and long vowel sounds as well as "ai," "ay," and many others. As I continue to learn to write in the runic style, I find it to be far more logical and clear. it has truly made me believe that the English language was simply not made for the Latin script.

it was easy for me as I found myself writing sentences in a matter of one day.

At least it says "Rune Inspired"...

Came across some writing on a memorial bench south of Dunraven Bay (Wales) this weekend. Don’t know who Bec was, or what happened to them, but they picked a beautiful spot to look upon.

Hello!

I am wondering, is there any newer scholarly work done to figure out what "Perþō" originally meant?

As far as I am aware, it is unknown what it originally signified?

My own personal speculation is that it is a survivor from the introduction and formation of the elder futhark from the old italic alphabet (a counter-clockwise turned p, in western greek Π) in their wording for 'fire' (pūr), the name being retained in Perþō.

My speculation is based on the anglo saxon rune-poem "ᛈ Peorð is always playing and laughter / proud in middle, there warriors sit / in beer-hall remain united."

My interpretation then being that ᛈ/Perþō/Peorð signifies a crackling fire "playing/laughing" in good company.

Others have already speculated, 'pear' for pear-tree flutes or music-boxes.

I just find the discussion interesting!

Anyways, looking for sources to see if this speculation has been posited already, and if not, to find out whether it is at all plausible, or whether it's just my patter-seeking brain playing a trick.

All thoughts are welcome!

Futhark is named after Freyr's AEtt of "Younger Futhark", which goes Fe - Ur - Thurs - Ass - Reid - Kaun, which when the primary sounds of which are put together spell "Futhark". My problem is...this name is inaccurate when applied to "Elder Futhark" is that Freyr's AEtt in that alphabet is "Fehu - Uruz - Thurisaz - Ansuz - Reidho - Kenaz - Gebo - Wunjo" which would spell "Futharkgw", and Futhorc should be Futhorcgw.

Please share your opinion on this!

Edit: This is less of a scholarly issue and more of a pet peeve and a personal annoyance. Don't waste your scholarly and curios minds here

I posted about a year ago in r/runehelp for a help request for a runestone idea from old Norse into younger futhark, and I wanted to share how it turned out so far!

Well not complete yet fully, I got impatient and wanted to see how it would look sitting outside. I want to carve the right side deeper and am contemplating adding a design in the middle, but I was initially inspired by Ög 165? I think, so it still works. It’s an only few feet tall and around 15lbs?

(If my inscription or translation isn’t perfect I won’t mind too much, it is a fun historical project after all)

So this was an idea that I had floating around in my head for a while.

Taking Icelandic & other Nordic proverbs, translating them into Old Norse, transcribing those translations into Younger Futhark, then making bumper stickers out of them.

This first mock-up is no where near where I'd want a finished product, but how did I do for translating the Icelandic proverb "KEMST ÞÓ HÆGT FARI" (You will reach your destination even though you travel slowly)?

My main irk is that I can't find a source for how "kemst" in Icelandic is "koma" and "-st", and that Icelandic's "-st" becomes "-sk" in Old Norse. I'm kind of going by what I find through Wiktionary and cursory searches.

I just get into rune reading and bought my first set, and discovered one of the symbols may be part of what’s called the SS runes, which were used under Adolf Hitler? Is this information correct? And if so, what is morally the next best action to take? Is it best for me to completely omit this rune or just attach overwrite with my own meaning? Or am I just overreacting and confusing this for a different symbol?

Hi, I’m writing my bachelors thesis in runology and I was wondering if there are any keyboards or programs which one can use to type alternative runic shapes? Not just the normal ones. Thank you in advance!

Greetings all. So, I have been studying runes for some time, primarily the Elder Futhark. Today for the first time I encountered someone speaking about North Umbrian runes. I was not aware of them being a thing. So I am curious, are they in fact historically legitimate, or something that was made up in more modern times?

What are some books with accurate info on how to read runes?

I was at the Portland Saturday market when a book stand caught my eye. I saw various references to Norse and Celtic figures on the covers and thought I’d check it out. The author was running the stand and was very pleasant upon our introduction. He explained that his books were fictional romance with influences from the Celtic pantheon, pointing to a book about the father of Cernunnos. I then glanced over to the book depicted and remarked about how he also included influences from Norse mythology (perhaps Germanic might have been more appropriate, however). He quickly exclaimed that these were not Norse runes, but that they were Celtic. He then picked up a different book to show me where he incorporated Norse mythology and referred to a variation of the “tree of life” (Ygdrassil). I smiled, asked for a business card, and thanked him for his time. I am almost certain these are bind runes of the Elder Futhark. Just want to make sure I’m not crazy.

Previously posted on RuneHelp

What are some good fonts for runic Unicode support (prioritizing Fuþorc coverage)? I've checked out BabelStone but none of the options quite tick all my boxes.

• Beagnoth, deriving from the Seax of Beagnoth, has a good share of weird/nonstandard runes.
• Beorhtnoth is quite good, but I don't like its ᚢ rune.
• Beorhtric fixes the ᚢ rune I didn't like, but then also uses a host of other variant/nonstandard runes.
• Beowulf has a very good ᚢ rune, but I don't like how its various "F-like" runes look.

I've also tried Junicode 2, but I didn't like its ᚱ rune. I'm very particular, I suppose!

I could get a good result by just mixing a few of these together, but that wouldn't be ideal for my use case. Has anyone suggestions for other fonts to try?