How to Cast and Read Runes: The Elder Futhark and the Truth About Norse Divination
What the Runes Actually Were
Twenty-four marks, scratched into wood or stone, that the Norse and Germanic peoples used to write, to remember, and perhaps to ask the future a question. The runes have become one of the most popular divination systems in the world, wrapped in a great deal of invented tradition. The real story is older, stranger, and far more honest than most guides will tell you.
The Elder Futhark is first and foremost a writing system. From roughly the second to the eighth century CE, Germanic-speaking peoples across northern Europe, from Scandinavia through the British Isles, Germany, and as far east as Hungary and Russia, used these twenty-four angular characters to carve inscriptions into stone, wood, metal, and bone. The name Futhark comes from the first six characters in sequence: Fehu, Uruz, Thurisaz, Ansuz, Raidho, Kenaz, giving the same naming logic as the word alphabet, which derives from the Greek alpha and beta. These were letters, functioning in the same way that letters function in any script, representing sounds in spoken language and allowing their users to record names, commemorate the dead, mark ownership of objects, and communicate across distance.
The shapes of the runes are not mysterious in origin. Scholars broadly agree that the Elder Futhark derived from contact with Mediterranean writing systems, most likely one of the Old Italic alphabets, whether Etruscan, Raetic, or an early form of Latin, encountered through trade, military contact, and migration at the edges of the Roman world. The angular, stroke-based forms of the runes, with their avoidance of horizontal lines and curves, reflect the practical demands of carving into wood grain and stone rather than the mystical geometry that later traditions projected onto them. Around four hundred and fifty known Elder Futhark inscriptions survive to the present day, most fragmentary or heavily weathered, a reminder of how much has been lost. The Kylver Stone from Gotland, Sweden, dated to around 400 CE and now held by the Swedish History Museum, preserves the complete twenty-four rune sequence in order and remains one of the most important runic artefacts in existence.
After roughly 700 CE, the Elder Futhark was replaced in Scandinavia by the Younger Futhark, a streamlined sixteen-rune script used through the Viking Age. It was further adapted in England into the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, an expanded variant used from around the fifth century. The Elder Futhark as a living writing system was eventually supplanted by the Latin alphabet as Christianisation swept through northern Europe, though runic inscriptions persisted in rural Scandinavia well into the medieval period and in some areas of Sweden into the nineteenth century.
The Honest History of Rune Divination
Most rune divination guides claim an unbroken tradition stretching back thousands of years to the Norse and Germanic peoples of the ancient world. This claim requires honest examination, because the actual historical evidence is considerably more complicated and considerably more interesting than the straightforward lineage most guides assert.
The most frequently cited piece of evidence for ancient rune divination is a passage in Tacitus's Germania, written in 98 CE. Tacitus describes the Germanic peoples cutting strips from a fruit-bearing tree, marking them with different signs, scattering them on a white cloth, and then having a priest or head of household pick three strips and interpret them according to the marks. This is unambiguous evidence of lot-casting divination practised by the early Germanic peoples. The debate among scholars is whether the marks Tacitus describes were runes. The word he uses is notis, meaning marks or signs, rather than litterarum notis, which would specifically indicate letters or written characters. Tacitus was a Roman outsider writing about Germanic customs he had not directly observed, and the earliest archaeological evidence for runes dates to the second century CE, approximately one lifetime after his account. The connection between Tacitus's marked staves and the Elder Futhark is therefore possible but not proven. Scholars including R. I. Page of the University of Cambridge have approached the Tacitus passage with appropriate caution, and the honest position is to present it as suggestive rather than conclusive.
Archaeological evidence for runic objects used specifically for divination is sparse. The three rune poems that survive, the Old Norwegian, Old Icelandic, and Old English rune poems, dating from approximately the eighth to the twelfth centuries, describe the runes and their associated concepts but do not describe a divinatory practice. References to runes in the Eddas and sagas are present but ambiguous: the word rún, from which our word rune derives, carries the meaning of mystery, secret, or whispered counsel, which suggests a weight beyond ordinary literacy, but does not specify a structured casting practice of the kind modern rune sets involve.
The structured divinatory system most people encounter today, with individual rune meanings assigned to each of the twenty-four characters and specific casting layouts, is substantially a modern construction. The earliest traces of a revived esoteric rune tradition appear in the early twentieth century, most notably in the work of the Austrian occultist and Germanic revivalist Guido von List, whose Das Geheimnis der Runen (The Secret of the Runes), published in 1908, presented an invented eighteen-rune system he called the Armanen runes, claimed to be the original proto-runic alphabet. Von List's work, which was explicitly tied to racial ideology and pan-Germanic mysticism, had nothing to do with the actual Elder Futhark and is not a source any contemporary practitioner should draw on. The popular rune divination system most people use today was significantly shaped by Ralph Blum, an American cultural anthropologist whose The Book of Runes, published in 1982, introduced the practice to a mass audience. Blum's own introduction acknowledges that his divinatory interpretations drew heavily on the I Ching, the Chinese divination system, rather than on Norse historical sources. His system works from the Elder Futhark's twenty-four characters, but the meanings he assigned them were his own synthesis rather than a recovered ancient practice.
This history does not make rune casting invalid. It makes it what it actually is: a modern divination system built on genuine ancient writing characters, drawing meaning from the reconstructed names and associated concepts of those characters as preserved in medieval rune poems and Norse mythological sources, and using casting methods informed by what Tacitus described and by analogy with other lot-casting traditions. That is a legitimate and coherent practice. It just is not the unbroken ancient oracle that most packaging claims.
A Note on Appropriation: What Strange & Twisted Stands Against
Several runes from the Elder Futhark have been appropriated by white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups, most prominently the Othala rune and the Tiwaz rune, and this is not an obscure or historical footnote. The Othala rune was adopted by Nazi Germany in the 1930s as insignia for Waffen SS units and the SS Race and Settlement Office. Following the Second World War, white supremacist movements across Europe and North America continued using it. The US National Socialist Movement replaced the swastika with Othala as its primary symbol in the late 2010s in a stated attempt to appear more mainstream. The Anti-Defamation League lists both Othala and Tiwaz in its hate symbols database, with the important qualification that both symbols also continue to be used in entirely non-extremist contexts by practitioners of Norse paganism and by people with no connection to hate movements, and that context is everything when evaluating any runic symbol.
Strange & Twisted is unambiguous about where it stands. The Elder Futhark belongs to the history of the Germanic and Norse peoples, to the scholars who study it, and to the practitioners who engage with it honestly and respectfully. It does not belong to racial ideologues who invented a pseudo-history to justify hatred and have deliberately misappropriated symbols that predate their ideology by fifteen centuries. We include Othala and Tiwaz in their correct historical context in this guide precisely because erasing them from the discussion does not reclaim them. Knowing what a symbol actually means, who used it and when, and who has since hijacked it is the most effective way to push back against that hijacking.
The Three Aettir: Understanding the Alphabet as a System
The twenty-four runes of the Elder Futhark are traditionally grouped into three sets of eight called aettir, singular aett, meaning families. Each aett begins with a mother rune that establishes the thematic territory of the group. Understanding the aettir is more useful for a beginner than attempting to memorise twenty-four individual meanings in isolation, because it gives each rune a relational context, a sense of what neighbourhood in the broader system it inhabits.
Freya's Aett, the first eight runes beginning with Fehu, covers the foundational forces of material life: wealth, physical strength, transformation, communication, movement, creativity, reciprocity, and joy. These are the energies of the world as it presents itself to us directly, the immediate currencies of daily existence.
Heimdall's Aett, the middle eight beginning with Hagalaz, moves into disruption, transformation, and the forces that operate beneath the surface of ordinary experience. Hail, need, ice, the turning year, the axis of the world tree, hidden processes, protection, and the sun. These are runes of change and of the forces that move through a life whether or not the person living it has requested them.
Tyr's Aett, the final eight beginning with Tiwaz, addresses the social, spiritual, and relational dimensions of human life: justice, the birch tree of new beginnings, the horse of partnership, the human being in community, water and the unconscious, the ancestral inheritance, the day and its clarity, and the rune of the homeland. These are the runes of how a person stands in relation to others and to the structures that hold a community together.
All 24 Runes: Names, Meanings, and Divinatory Significance
The meanings given here are drawn from the reconstructed Proto-Germanic names of the runes and from the medieval rune poems, which are the closest thing to primary sources available for the runes' symbolic associations. They are presented as interpretive frameworks, not prophecies.
Fehu (ᚠ), Cattle. Wealth, abundance, and the energy of acquisition and circulation. In the ancient world, cattle were the primary measure of movable wealth, and Fehu carries that association with earned prosperity, fertility of projects, and the responsible management of resources. In divination, it speaks to material gain, new financial beginnings, or the need to share what has been accumulated.
Uruz (ᚢ), Aurochs. The wild ox, now extinct, that represented raw, untamed physical power. Uruz is the rune of primal strength, vitality, health, and the willpower to push through resistance. In divination, it indicates physical wellbeing, the capacity to overcome obstacles, or a new beginning that requires courage rather than caution.
Thurisaz (ᚦ), Giant or Thorn. The rune of the Norse giants and of the protective thorn. This is a rune of concentrated, directed force, associated with Thor and the hammer, capable of both defence and destruction. In divination, it indicates a powerful change arriving, a situation requiring reactive rather than proactive energy, or a moment of breakthrough that may be uncomfortable.
Ansuz (ᚨ), God, specifically Odin. The rune of the spoken word, communication, wisdom, and divine breath. Ansuz connects to the mouth, to language, to the transmission of knowledge and inspiration. In divination, it suggests a message is coming or needs to be delivered, that communication is the key to the situation, or that wisdom and guidance are available if sought.
Raidho (ᚱ), Wagon or Ride. Journey, rhythm, and the movement of events through time. Raidho encompasses both physical travel and the forward motion of a situation toward its natural conclusion. In divination, it indicates movement, progress, a journey either literal or metaphorical, or the need to take the reins rather than waiting for circumstances to shift.
Kenaz (ᚲ), Torch. Light in darkness, creative fire, craft and skill, and the illumination of hidden things. Kenaz is the rune of the maker and the artist, of controlled heat applied to produce transformation. In divination, it suggests clarity arriving, creative energy available, a skill being developed or applied, or something previously hidden becoming visible.
Gebo (ᚷ), Gift. The exchange between equals, reciprocity, generosity, and the sacred bonds created by giving and receiving. In Norse culture, gift exchange was a formal social act that created and maintained relationships. Gebo in divination indicates partnership, a balanced exchange, a relationship of genuine reciprocity, or the importance of giving without expectation of return.
Wunjo (ᚹ), Joy. The rune of pleasure, harmony, comfort, and the satisfaction of things working well. Wunjo is one of the most straightforwardly positive runes in the alphabet, indicating a period of wellbeing, reward for effort, harmony in relationships, and the simple experience of life going right.
Hagalaz (ᚺ), Hail. The first rune of the second aett and the one that opens the sequence of disruption and transformation. Hail arrives without warning, damages what it strikes, and melts into water that nourishes. Hagalaz in divination indicates an unavoidable disruption, an external force that cannot be controlled, or a situation that must be weathered rather than managed.
Nauthiz (ᚾ), Need. Necessity, constraint, and the friction that produces growth. Nauthiz is the rune of what cannot be avoided, of the needs that drive action, and of the strength that comes from enduring difficulty. In divination, it indicates a period of constraint or hardship, a need that requires acknowledgement rather than avoidance, or patience demanded by circumstances outside one's control.
Isa (ᛁ), Ice. Stillness, suspension, and the frozen state in which nothing moves. Ice preserves what it holds but prevents all progress. Isa in divination indicates a standstill, a situation frozen in place, the need to wait for thaw, or a period of enforced inaction that may be used for internal reflection.
Jera (ᛃ), Year or Harvest. The cycle of seasons completed, the harvest earned by sustained effort, and the natural turning of time. Jera is a rune of patient process rather than sudden change, indicating that results will come in their proper season from work already done. In divination, it speaks to long-term outcomes, the rewards of consistent effort, and the importance of working with natural cycles rather than against them.
Eihwaz (ᛇ), Yew Tree. The yew is simultaneously a tree of death, the primary material of the longbow, and one of the longest-living organisms in the natural world. Eihwaz represents endurance, the connection between the living and the dead, reliable strength under pressure, and the axis of the world tree Yggdrasil. In divination, it indicates that the querent possesses more resilience than they may be aware of, or that a situation requires sustained endurance rather than a single decisive action.
Pertho (ᛈ), uncertain meaning. Pertho is the most debated rune in the Elder Futhark; its original name meaning is not agreed upon, with proposals including a dice cup, a fruit tree, or a gaming piece. It is consistently associated with hidden things, fate, mystery, and the operations of chance. In divination, it indicates that not everything about a situation is visible, that fate is at work beyond what rational analysis can reach, or that something currently hidden is about to be revealed.
Algiz (ᛉ), Elk or Sedge Grass. The rune of protection, warding, and the divine connection that offers shelter. The shape of Algiz, the upraised hand or the spread fingers of the elk's antler, is itself a gesture of warding. In divination, it indicates protection available, a need to establish boundaries, divine support in a situation, or the importance of awareness and vigilance rather than passive trust.
Sowilo (ᛊ), Sun. Victory, clarity, vitality, and the energy of the sun as the life-giving force at the centre of the natural world. Sowilo is one of the most straightforwardly positive runes in the second aett, indicating success, health, the achievement of goals, and the illuminating clarity that dissolves confusion. It has no reversed position in most traditions, as its energy remains positive regardless of orientation.
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Tyr's Aett: The Final Eight
Tiwaz (ᛏ), Tyr. The rune of the god Tyr, associated with justice, sacrifice, and the proper ordering of society. Tyr sacrificed his hand to bind the wolf Fenrir, an act of willing self-loss for the good of the community, and Tiwaz carries that association with principled sacrifice, legal matters, and the courage to do what is right when it comes at personal cost. In divination, it indicates a situation requiring sacrifice, a legal or ethical matter, or the need to act from principle rather than convenience. A note on context: the Tiwaz rune was used by Nazi Germany as the insignia of a Waffen SS infantry division and has since been used by neo-Nazi groups. Its original meaning is entirely unrelated to racial ideology, but awareness of this misappropriation is important for practitioners.
Berkano (ᛒ), Birch Tree. The rune of the birch, one of the first trees to leaf in spring, associated with new beginnings, birth, fertility, nurturing, and the regenerative capacity of life to restart after hardship. Berkano in divination indicates a new beginning, a birth either literal or metaphorical, a nurturing situation, or the careful tending of something new and fragile.
Ehwaz (ᛖ), Horse. The rune of the horse as a partnership animal, representing the relationship between horse and rider as a model for all productive partnerships between different kinds of beings. Ehwaz indicates co-operation, trust, gradual progress through working well with another, and the rewards of a partnership entered with full commitment.
Mannaz (ᛗ), Man or Human Being. The rune of humanity itself, representing the individual in community, self-awareness, and the social intelligence that makes collective life possible. Mannaz in divination points to the querent's relationship with the people around them, the need for cooperation and mutual respect, or a situation that requires thinking clearly about one's own nature and motivations.
Laguz (ᛚ), Water or Lake. The rune of water in its flowing, unconscious, intuitive quality. Laguz governs the depths beneath the visible surface of a situation, the emotional undercurrents, intuitive knowledge, and the sometimes overwhelming force of feelings. In divination, it suggests that intuition rather than analysis is the appropriate tool, that something important is happening beneath the visible surface, or that a situation requires emotional intelligence above all else.
Ingwaz (ᛜ), Ing or the God Freyr. The rune of the god Freyr, associated with fertility, completion, internal gestation, and the period of quiet growth before emergence. Ingwaz indicates a process reaching its natural completion, a pregnancy either literal or metaphorical, the release of stored energy, or the satisfaction of a cycle properly completed.
Dagaz (ᛞ), Day. The breakthrough of full light, the clarity of noon, and the transformation that occurs at the threshold between darkness and dawn. Dagaz is a rune of awakening, of the moment when things become clear after a period of confusion or darkness. In divination, it indicates a breakthrough, a sudden clarity, a transformation into a new state, or the arrival of a period of illumination after difficulty.
Othala (ᛟ), Ancestral Estate or Homeland. The rune of inherited land, ancestral property, the accumulated wisdom of lineage, and the home as a sacred place. Othala speaks to what is received from those who came before and what is passed forward to those who come after. In divination, it indicates ancestral patterns at work in a situation, the importance of home and roots, or inherited resources, both material and spiritual. The Othala rune was appropriated by the Nazi SS and continues to be used by neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups. Its actual meaning in the Elder Futhark is a record of genuine human attachment to home, lineage, and the wisdom of ancestors, none of which belongs to those who hijacked it.
The Blank Rune: Why to Ignore It
Many commercial rune sets include a twenty-fifth tile with no mark on it, sold as the Blank Rune or Odin's Rune, described as representing the unknowable, the divine, or fate itself. This is not an ancient tradition. It does not exist in the Elder Futhark, the Younger Futhark, or any runic system predating the modern period. There is no mention of it in any saga, Edda, rune poem, or historical source of any kind. The blank rune was introduced by Ralph Blum in his 1982 Book of Runes and has since been reproduced in commercial sets by manufacturers who copied Blum's system without investigating its origins. Remove it from your set. A rune with no mark is simply a blank tile, and reading meaning into a blank tile is a category error that introduces unnecessary confusion into the system without adding anything the twenty-four actual runes do not already provide.
Casting Methods: How to Actually Read the Runes
Your rune set can be made from any material on which a mark can be carved or painted: wood, stone, ceramic, bone, or clay. Many practitioners make their own as the first act of connection with the system, spending time with each character as it is carved. If you purchase a set, choose one whose material feels right in the hand, as you will be handling these objects in a tactile way during every reading. Store them in a bag or box reserved for this purpose, handle them regularly, and keep them out of casual use by others.
Before casting, quiet the mind and hold your question clearly in attention. The more specific the question, the more useful the reading. Draw a simple cloth or natural surface to cast on, white or undyed linen follows the description in Tacitus, and provides a neutral ground against which the rune characters are visible. The casting surface marks a boundary between ordinary and ritual attention in the same way that any divination setup does.
The Single Rune Draw is the most accessible and most consistently useful practice in the system. Reach into the bag with your non-dominant hand, hold your question in mind, and draw one rune. Read it. Note your immediate reaction before consulting any reference. This daily practice, maintained consistently over weeks, builds a direct intuitive relationship with the runes faster than any amount of study.
The Three Rune Draw follows the same procedure with three runes drawn in sequence and laid left to right. The most common positions are Past, Present, Future: what has shaped the situation, where it stands now, where it is heading. Alternatively: Situation, Action, Outcome, the what, the what-to-do, and the probable result of doing it. Three runes can also represent different perspectives on a single question, the mind's view, the heart's view, and what the situation actually requires.
The Scatter Method is closer to the lot-casting described by Tacitus. Take the full set or a handful of runes, hold your question, and cast them onto the cloth. Read only those that land face up; the face-down runes are set aside. Runes that land close to the centre of the cloth carry more immediate relevance than those at the edges. Runes that cluster together are read in relationship. This method produces a less structured but often surprisingly coherent picture of a situation and requires practice to develop fluency with.
On reversed runes: some practitioners read a rune differently when it falls upside down, treating the reversal as indicating the rune's energy blocked, turned inward, or expressing its shadow aspect. Others read all runes in the same orientation regardless of how they fall. Both approaches are defensible. Consistency matters more than which approach you choose; pick one and apply it throughout your practice.
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Building the Practice
Keep a rune journal from the start. Record every draw, your question, the rune or runes that came up, your immediate interpretation, and what the day or situation subsequently produced. Over time this journal becomes your most reliable reference, a personalised record of how the runes communicate through your specific attention and in your specific life context. The meanings in this guide, and in any guide, are starting frameworks. The meanings you arrive at through direct, documented experience will always be more accurate for you.
Study the Norse mythological sources associated with the runes: the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda provide the stories and cosmological context from which the rune names draw their meaning. Fehu's connection to mobile wealth and the cycles of prosperity makes more sense when you understand the Norse concept of gift exchange. Tiwaz's association with sacrifice makes more sense when you know the myth of Tyr and Fenrir. The myths are not required for the divination system to function, but they deepen it considerably for those who engage with them.
The runes are a writing system, a historical artefact, a body of mythological symbolism, and a divination practice. None of these dimensions cancels the others. The most useful relationship with the runes is one that holds all of them simultaneously, aware of what is ancient and what is modern, what is documented and what is reconstructed, and still finding in the twenty-four marks something worth sitting with every morning over a drawn tile and an honest question.
Strange & Twisted covers the full history and practice of divination, from runes and cartomancy to tarot and spirit communication. Explore our archive for more historically grounded, practically useful guides to the tools of the craft.
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