#RuneLore writes

[astroyongie]

omg I'm so excited about runes!!! when I was younger I learned the alphabet in runes and started writing my diary like that lmao

since then I've been very interested in them but I never had the chance to properly learn about them, so thank you for the opportunity!!!

also, you have any books about runes to look up to? thank you so much :)

ahh i am glad that you might enjoy it!! I am pretty much new with runes too (only started like 3 years go since I started worshipping Freyja). and so far it is a very good tool but I must admit it's hard ;--; at least to me, I still have some trouble when casting too much.

for some academic reliable sources, I would advice:

Runes: a Handbook by Michael P. Barne

A practical guide to the runes by Lisa Peschel

Nordic Runes: Understanding, casting and interpreting the ancient Viking oracle by Paul Rhys Mountfort

Futhark: A Handbook of Rune Magic by Edred Thorsson

Runelore: The Magic, History, and Hidden Codes of the Runes by Edred Thorsson

and pretty much any book by Thorsson

[runelore]

Okay, I know my trademark is not using this tumblr but oh my Mephistopheles I literally just finished recording an AFO showdown at Kamino for my upcoming 1 year anniversary podfic and HOLY KDJFN my ears are actually ringing that performance was so intense

I really really hope that intensity carries over to you all’s end, so I’m very excited to see what my regulars and lurkers think.

Like, no joke, that was INTENSE. I am so stupidly hyped I’m losin it over here

[lazyyogi]

This is the most legit journal I’ve made. It is a book of runelore and alchemy. I created it sometime between 2014-2015. It is often consulted when I use runes for divination or operative intention (ie. magic). Today I began writing in it for the first time in five years.

[fencesandfrogs]

Great timing for that last text post because precisely today I spent a lot of time reading up on witchcraft and such (anglo-saxon runelore and magical uses of writing more generally have particularly caught my attention).

Since warding seems to have come up a fair amount in other posts of yours about witchcraft I've come across, do you have any pointers on how I could start looking into that, specially if I don't have to start out with too many supplies or fancy tools?

yes!

there's lots of ways to do wards, and i'm not an expert by any means on anything, nor do i happen to have any links around to resources.

but the basic idea of a ward around a physical space is to make some kind of border for energy. the phrasing i used for the ones around my house was about ill-intent. i need to strengthen 'em tho it's been too long.

but anyway, i didn't want to use salt, because it's bad for the environment, so i used ashes from paper protection sigils on them. i've got a specific sigil for the house wards.

i also went over the direct thresholds of my house with the ashes.

anyway, then i charged 'em with straight energy work which is the Free-est kind of witchcraft. the way i teach people to get started with it is to rub your hands until they're all hot, and sort of. feel that. it's...easier to demo in person, honestly. but it's also how i teach people to cast circles unless i'm being fancy and actually marking out the circle which i do for like. holidays and that's it.

but back on topic, for the wards on my room, i bound the energy in a knot on a particular piece of yarn. it was ritually cleansed and had significance to me for other reasons. that worked for my room because it's a defined space and i was tying it around the access point.

uh, that's not really a how-to, so much as. a description of what i do assuming you know what that stuff is.

so: basically,

i made a protection sigil through [there are like a million ways to make sigils, i make all my own but that's preference]

i took a few sheets of paper, wrote the sigil on it, charged it (you can charge sigils in a lot of ways), burned it (safely and outside), and put that ash in a container.

(there's also...fuck, i'd have to pull out my notes to see what else i put in, but it wasn't just ash from that. i did this before i had any specific witchcraft supplies - now i've got a whole cache of herbs and jars and things - so it would have been household ingredients. might have put pepper in it.)

i sprinkled that around the outside of my house, all the way around the yard (got some weird looks from the neighbours but i don't care), then i sat approximately in the centre of the area, and...more or less cast a circle on the boundary i had marked out.

i went over the thresholds of the house for Extra security, and then i bound similar energy in a knot around my doorknob.

oh!!! wait this is important you should cleanse the space before you ward, just to make sure nothing is lurking around.

okay anyway, if i were to do this now, i'd do roughly the same thing. i think i'd anchor the wards to a physical marker in the house. maybe find something in the basement or something.

carve/write/etc the sigil on it, use that as an anchor. i'm...not sure if i'm explaining any of this very well.

but hope this helps

[thorsvinur]

hello William. My name is EC and i came across a post you made about good books to read for Rune study. I noticed that you mentioned that The Book of Runes by Ralh Blum is a bad source, and I was wondering why you say that. I have said book in my collection and while i havnt read it extensively, i've found it useful. I just want to know your reasoning so i can decided what to do with it from here. much love and admiration

Hey, so I have no idea how long this has been in my inbox because

Tumblr doesn't date these

I have been tending to access my account for about 1-2 months out of the year.

I just realized about a week ago where the asks are on here. 😅

However, I didn't want to seem like I've been purposely ignoring this. I consider the Book of Runes to be a bad source for learning runes in the context of their history, name meanings and uses in writing. Regarding divination, which many choose to use them for, I don't have nearly as much input, mostly because this use is most likely a modern invention, and the methods by which it's done definitely are.

My critique around the points I focus on centers on the fact that Blum writes about them in what seems to be every context except for their own. He relates them to the I Ching, which definitely doesn't mesh; he reorders them for reasons I don't understand; he calls the elder futhark "viking runes" even though they stopped being used around a century before the nominal Viking Era; a number of the name meanings are inaccurate and the inclusion of the "blank rune" is completely ahistorical.

That aside, he basically does these things while brushing right past the awesome history of the runes themselves: how they initially developed, how they evolved over time along with the various Germanic languages they were used to write, actual methods for using them with magic based on sources from the period, etc. Essentially, if you want to learn about incorporating runes into a modern divination system then I have no real honest input, but when it comes to learning about the history of them in their own environment then there are many much better sources out there, and even on a budget Stephen Pollington's Rudiments of Runelore is a quality book that can be purchased for about $10-$15 (though its availability seems to go in waves and the price can have an inverse relationship to it).

The unfortunate thing about me taking so long to see this (maybe; I still don't know when it was sent 😅), aside from seeming rude, is that it's been so long since I actually read the book that I've kinda forgotten some of the things that I didn't like about it. 😆

[los-gatitos]

kdhdhdhdjdjsks

@runelore recorded a podfic of my shindeku fic on ao3 and its the coolest thing i have ever heard i swear. ignoring how bad my writing is i implore y’all to check it out and their other podfics !

[maddiviner]

Giant Mutant Annotated Bibliography

My list of recommended books is sorely in need of an update. As someone said in response to last year’s update, though, it’s really long. I’ve decided to break the list up into sections, posting each separately. My tentative sections are, in no particular order:

Books for Absolute Beginners

Spellcraft

Spellbooks

Symbology and Magical Writing

Astral Journeying

Ecstatic Traditions

Animal Magick

Historical works

Chaos Magic

Ceremonial Magick

Energy Work

Psychic Development

Scrying

Tarot

Lenormand

Tasseography

Runelore

Spiritwork

So, that’s seventeen posts, total. I’ve got quite a bit of new reviews to add to this since last year, and I’m only going to include the good ones, of course. This is a lot of work, but I figure I can have a few of these ready by Wednesday, and more later in the week/next week.

I still have a paper to finish tonight/tomorrow, though.

[the-swamprat]

Hey! I thought your post on runes was really interesting. My only experience with them has been through divination probably because that’s just how they were introduced to me. So (unless I just misunderstood) what exactly are runes used for? I saw you mentioned the secrets of them, but with this what are they used for? I guess what’s their purpose if not divination :)

Hey great question and sorry for not getting to it sooner! Being exposed to runes primarily as a form of divination is totally normal and completely fine! Most people only ever use them as such and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. 

Runes have a few different historical purposes. They’re essentially the old Norse Alphabet. So they were literally used as a form of writing, or as the building blocks of the language spoken by the ancient Norse peoples. Many people still use the runes to write with. 

They were also used for and as talismans and charms. We have multiple accounts of items such as swords, jewelry, pottery, etc… being found with runes carved into them for varying purposes. 

You can ask for the guidance/aid of the runes, all of them or specific ones. You can simply just research and enjoy runelore without actually working with the runes at all. 

And when I talked about their “secrets” that was mostly in reference to like, how Odin got the runes for the rest of humanity, although most practitioners find that the more you work with them, the more they reveal to you. It’s really amazing.

Runes to me are just so fascinating, they can do and be so much. I think the most important thing to make note of though is that unlike other forms of divination, they ask as much of you as you do of them. For me that accountability really helped me build a lot of trust and faith, which I haven’t been able to get with other methods of divination. 

Really great question, thanks so much.

[runelore]

ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ Yes I am super inactive, whooooops. If you wanna see my work(I’ve gotten SO much better at narrating), check out my AO3 or my archive.org page~

I reply significantly faster to comments, so if there’s something pressing or you want a tepid response, go ahead and comment on any of my works! I have 70 more works for you to listen to, with many more on the way! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ