Here is a good presentation of the
rúnar (runes) that are in use among the Norse during the Viking Period.
In Noregr, there are 15
rúna-stafir (runes letters) in the Norse alphabet
fuþórk. In other parts of Scandinavia, there are still 16. But in the (Old West Norse) Noregr dialect the r-sound and the R-sound merged into the same r-sound. So the sixteenth rúnastafr for the obsolete R-sound fell out of use. The r-rúnastafr extended to displace it. The lost Proto-Norse R-sound reconstructs as a retroflexive [ɽ]. (This is sort of like the American r, but more fricative against the palate.) The exact sound of the r that prevails in Old Norse remains debatable. Linguists reconstruct it variously, possibly a tap [ɾ] or a uvular [ʁ], or a trill [r]. Today in the modern Scandinavian languages all three r sounds survive in various dialects, and there are regional dialects of Old Norse during the Viking Period too, plausibly with different r sounds.
Notice, these 15 ‘viking runes’ differ from the 24 runes that today pop culture might be familiar with. In fact, these 24 ‘elder runes’ did exist in Scandinavia for Proto-Norse during the 200s to 400s. But by the time of Old Norse during the Viking Period, these elder runes had been out of use for centuries. During the 500s to 700s, many experimental variants are extent. By the 800s, at the start of the Viking Period, they somewhat stabilize. The nickname ‘younger runes’ corresponds to the Old Norse rúnar that the víkingar use.
In the 900s, the vowel letters for Old Norse rúnar were as follows. The ã-rúnastafr can represent any nasalized vowel sound. In some places where Proto-Norse had a vowel followed by [n], by the time of Old Norse, the vowel assimilated it becoming a nasalized vowel. (Compare today French which similarly features many nasalized vowels.) The u-rúnastafr can represent any rounded vowel [u, o, ǫ, ø, y]. The i-rúnastafr can represent any frontal vowel [i, y, ø, e]. And the a-rúnastafr can represent any open vowel [a, ǫ, ø, ę, æ]. So, rúnar inscriptions evidence many spelling variations.
By the 1000s, the nasalized vowels ceased to exist in the Noregr dialect. So the Noregr runic tradition repurposed the obsolete ã-rúnastafr to now serve as a rúnastafr for the vowel [o], thus innovating the o-rúnastafr , whence the alphabet name, ‘fuþórk’.
As an other innovation some decades later, some Noregr
rúna-meistari (runes master) repurposed the long-gone R-rúnastafr , called Yr (‘yew’ tree), to now represent the rounded frontal vowel [y]. From this point on, the runic vowel letters came to narrow the possible vowel sounds. Around the same time, a pointed i-rúnastafr added to the fuþórk to distinguish the vowel [e] from other frontal vowels relating to the i-rúnastafr. The shape of this new e-rúnastafr resembles an obsolete short-twig script h-rúnastafr, so in some sense both earlier rúnastafir R and h found reuse as vowel letters. The use of vowel letters, o, y, and e spread across Scandinavia, making u and i more precise as well.
Across the Viking Period, the consonant letters can represent both the voiced and unvoiced sounds. For example, the k-rúnastafr can represent both unvoiced [k] and voiced [g], as well as nasal ‘ng’ [ŋ]. Note, a soft velar fricative [ᵞ] can be either the k-rúnstafr or the i-rúnstafr, or sometimes silent.
During the Post-Viking Period, 1100s to 1300s, increasing exposure to Pan-European literature and its Latin alphabet, inspired runic traditions to innovate more rúnastafir by adding modifications of related ones, so as to distinguish between voiced and unvoiced, and so on, thus forming a highly precise phonetic alphabet that remained in use as the ordinary alphabet in Noregr thruout this period.
During the Viking Period (800s to 1000s), several rúnar scripts are in use simultaneously. The script that tends to prevail in Svíþjórð is the ‘short twig’ script, the one that tends to prevail in Danmǫrk is the ‘long branch’ script, and the one that tends to prevail in Noregr (illustrated above and below) is a distinctive script that shares certain features with both of them. Much less frequently, certain other scripts are in use across Scandinavia.
The names of the rúnastafir (runes letters) are.
ᚠ Fé ‘asset’ (money or cattle)
ᚢ Úr ‘dross’ (from iron ore)
ᚦ Þurs ‘ogre’ (grotesque frost Jǫtunn)
ᚮ Óss ‘estuary’ (especially as sailing port) (obsolete Áss ‘sky spirit’)
ᚱ Reið ‘ride’ (such as on horse or wagon, or further developing work done by others)
ᚴ Kaun ‘ulcer’ (such as infected skin boil)
ᚼ Hagall ‘hail’ (understood as a seed of matter and the material world)
ᚿ Nauð ‘need’ (painful, but motivating innovation, and sometimes connoting a wish)
ᛁ Íss ‘ice’ (able to bridge over deadly waters, yet can be deadly itself)
ᛆ Ár ‘year’ (but in the sense of annual harvest and abundance)
ᛌ Sól ‘sun’ (a gentle lifegiving warmth)
ᛐ Týr ‘victory’ (an obscure sky spirit but connoting singlemindedness in struggle culminating success)
ᛒ Bjarkan ‘birch’ tree (apparently connoting deception − unsure why)
ᛘ Maðr ‘human’ (the Mennir family of vættir nature spirits, connoting farming, sailing, hunting)
ᛚ Lǫgr ‘mountain lake’ (receiving and giving freshwater rivers, especially above a waterfall)
The rúnastafr
ᛦ Yr ‘yew’ (connoting a longbow made out of yew wood), discontinues as R around the start of the Viking Period but revives as y around the end of the Viking Period.
The Norse can employ runic inscriptions for magical purposes. Many examples survive in the archeological record. No two inscriptions are alike. Norse magic is individualist, spontaneous, and diverse. It is more important to be in the moment, to emanate personal influence.
Norse magic is mainly verbal, but can be silent, or even unintentional. A warrior can improvise a new ‘chant’ (ljóð) as a focus to manifest protective magic (defense, healing, warding, restoration, abjuration). There are occasional examples of employing a somatic ritual, apparently drumming a
vǫlr shamanic staff on the ground for a psychic attack against a distant mind, sitting on an elevated ‘high’ seat to enhance clairsentient ‘sight’, and one woman cursing while bending over to see the target upside down thru her legs. Evidently, Norse men tend to sing protective magic musically, while women modeling the female
Vǫlva shaman tend to speak mind-manipulating magic in prose. Notable examples exist that are probably fair to characterize as crossgender magic. Yet its wielders can still exemplify a cisgender identity. For example, there are masculine men who demonstrate feminine mind-manipulating seiðr, and feminine women who demonstrate masculine galdra chanting. Anecdotes about the Alfar (where Alfar are men and Valkyrjur are inferably Alfar women) show both sexes mastering every form of magic, both protective and mind-manipulating. Moreover, anyone who can prophesy (spá), whether male or female, is sacred. As a social institution, the main duty of a Vǫlva shaman is to prophesy, albeit she is likely to master other kinds of magic as well.
Generally for a magical runic inscription, the inscriber creates a memorable phrase that expresses the intent, focuses on it while writing, thus psychically imprints and imbues this personal intention into the object being carved. The object can then transport the psychic influence to wherever the object is. The more mnemonic the phrase, the more memorable, the more impacting, thus the more powerful the magical effect. Alliteration is common. Occasionally just the first rúnastafr of each word appears, so that the inscription looks like an obscure acronym. For some individuals, the different phases of the writing process serve as different phases of the meditative process, from mental to actual: cleaning a flat surface, deciding what phrase to write, sketching out the rúnar with charcoal, reading the sketch outloud to proofread, carving the rúnar, then wetting the rúnar with ale to clear debris and enhance legibility.
Note the two meanings. The Norse carve a
rúnstafr ‘runes letter’ into a
rúnstafr ‘runes staff’. Ideally a suitable stick is stripped, smoothed, and rounded, for a staff. The runic message lines across it or coils around it. But in the archeological record almost any surface is possible, such as wood, stone, horn, ivory, or bone.
Toward the end of the Viking Period, the
Skald bardic traditions formulate a poetic rhythm for use in magical phrasing (galdra-lag ‘layering of magics’). Each ‘layer’, being a verse in the stanza, alliterates a particular sound. It develops from a modification of a formal rhythm for use in musical chanting (ljóða-háttr ‘meter of chants’). Even so, magical runic inscriptions continue to be spontaneous and diverse, and the Skald formula is best understood as a personal style of certain individuals.
The name rúnar literally means ‘secrets’, in the sense that the alphabet is a kind of secret code that only literate people know how to decode.