This text is an English adaptation of an article originally written in Swedish for Shamanistiskt Förbund.
The original article can be read here:
https://www.shamanistisktforbund.se/runor-och-jag-en-personlig-relation-till-aldre-futhark
In connection with that article, I also developed a WordPress plugin for the Shamanistiskt Förbund Sverige site, where visitors can explore the Elder Futhark, individual runes, and interpretations in a more interactive way.
Runes
Runes can be understood in many different ways.
This text is not a review of the history of the runes or a complete description of their meanings. It is a personal reflection, a description of how my relationship with the runes has grown over time.
I am not a runologist. I am not an expert, and I make no claims to having the correct interpretation of anything. What I do have is a relationship with the runes that has developed over time, through books, encounters and conversations with knowledgeable people, ceremonies, and moments of silence where something in me has listened more than usual.
This is my version. My take. Take it for what it is.
Why the Elder Futhark?
There are several runic systems. Younger Futhark. Medieval runes. The Anglo-Saxon Futhorc with its 28 characters. I respect each of them.
But the Elder Futhark, with its 24 runes, is what has resonated with me the most, at least for now, in the phase of life I am in. That may change. I am open to that.
There is something about the 24 runes that feels complete without being restrictive. They cover a wide spectrum of human experience, natural forces, and cosmological principles without becoming abstract or difficult to grasp. Each rune is a doorway that can be opened a little or a lot, depending on where you are in life. Fehu is about movement and vitality, but it is also about how we relate to what we own and what we give away. Thurisaz is protection, but it is also confrontation with what we would rather avoid. That is the kind of depth and versatility I am looking for.
More than letters
In the Nordic tradition, the runes were (and are) never just an alphabet. They were forces, principles, tools for understanding the world and one’s place within it. To learn the runes was not only to learn how to write, but how to see.
I do not know if I accept the entire mythology surrounding Odin’s sacrifice at Yggdrasil as a literal truth. But as an image, it is powerful. He sacrificed himself, hanging on the tree until the runes revealed themselves. It is a way of saying that certain knowledge requires giving something up, enduring discomfort until understanding emerges on its own. That is something I recognize in my own work with the runes.
How I use them
I draw a rune sometimes. Not to get a definitive answer, but to give myself something to carry through the day, a perspective to hold, and to see what arises from it.
I meditate with them. Sometimes I chant galdr, the sounds of the runes, not because it is magical in a theatrical sense, but because the vibrations in the body do something. It is difficult to explain to someone who has not tried it. It is easy to understand for someone who has.
I think of them when I am out in the forest. Algiz when I see a moose disappear among the spruce trees. Laguz by the lake in autumn, when the mist lies thick over the water. Berkano when the birches unfold in spring and the air smells like something is beginning again.
It is not complicated. It does not have to be.
Sources of inspiration
I have been shaped by books, by encounters and conversations with people who carry deep knowledge, by practitioners who have shared their understanding without needing to write it down, and by personal experiences in nature that cannot easily be put into words but have left a lasting imprint. It is a synthesis of learned knowledge, heard stories, and something that can only be called experience. No single source holds the whole truth. Neither do I.