Nordic Runes: Understanding, Casting, and Interpreting the Ancient Viking Oracle

by Paul Rhys Mountfort

Overview

A comprehensive and practical guide to the ancient oracle based on the runic alphabet of the Norse

• Reveals the symbolism and divinatory significance of the 24 rune "staves"

• Provides clear instructions on how to craft your own rune stones

• Explains the role of runes in the Norse wisdom tradition and its influence on such works as Tolkien's Lord of the Rings

Nordic runes are a potent and profoundly transformative magic system that gives contemporary readers access to the ancient wisdom tradition of Northern European cultures. The runes have deep resonances within the pagan Norse world of gods and goddesses, giants, dwarves, warriors, and wizards, which have greatly influenced the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, among others. Norse tradition attributes the discovery of the runes to the "All-Father" Odin—a god of inspiration and secret wisdom and the mythical prototype for runecasters, who established the pattern for gaining his knowledge.

Nordic Runes addresses three major areas: Runelore, the history of this 2000-year-old Norse oracle; Runestaves, the meaning of the individual runes of the Elder Futhark alphabet and their powerful mythological, magical, and practical lessons for daily life; and Runecasting, a comprehensive guide to the oracular application of the ancient runes, including their crafting, divination, and self-development. As Nordic Runes shows, the runes do more than simply reflect the path of fate; they help develop and enhance intuition. By learning to cast and interpret the runes, the user becomes receptive to the energy currents in material reality and empowered in the arts of its transformation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780892810932
Publisher:	Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
Publication date:	05/05/2003
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Paul Rhys Mountfort is a writer, researcher, and workshop leader specializing in the Celtic and Norse traditions. He is the author of Ogam: The Celtic Oracle of the Trees. Active in the contemporary pagan community, he lives with his partner and son on Waiheke Island, in the Hauraki Gulf of Auckland, New Zealand.

Read an Excerpt

fom the Introduction:

The Origin of Runes and How to Use this Book

This book is a complete guide for those who wish to draw on the well of practical and esoteric wisdom embodied in the ancient Runes. It provides the necessary tools for interpreting ‘the runes of good help’ and the teachings from the Norse wisdom tradition on which they are founded. Having come into prominence some two-thousand years ago, the twenty-four runestaves of the ancient Elder Futhark alphabet are more relevant to us today, at the dawn of a new millennium, than ever before. Like the images of the Tarot deck and hexagrams of the I Ching, Runes are profound keys to personal empowerment, self-development and spiritual awareness.

The Runes are native to traditional Northern European cultures. They have deep resonances within the pagan Norse world of high gods and goddesses, elemental forces, giants, dwarves, warriors and wizards that inspired, among others, J. R. R Tolkien in the writing of his fantasy fictions. Ancient tales tell of their discovery by the magician-god Odin, their use in magic, and divination. This last, predictive use of Runes continues with us today. However, the twenty-four runes of the Elder Futhark are more than mere fortune-telling tokens: they are a potent key to the rich mythological heritage of the Norse world. Each ‘stave’ (individual rune) evokes a set of tales and correspondences in ancient Norse myth; they encode a set of profound teachings, an entire wisdom tradition. These teachings, moreover, have a universality and a timelessness to their insights, messages to impart that transcends their Northern European origins.

Divination systems like the Runes are based on sets of meaningful signs, omens which we ‘randomly’ choose and interpret for their personal message to us. But how could such a procedure possibly work? The traditional Norse answer would be that, in the Web of Wyrd (Destiny), all things and events resonate in a profound and luminous way and that Runes faithfully record the signature of the energy movements underlying our own unique fate-path at the moment of consultation. The scientific rationalism of the West generally does not admit that events which are not causally related can have an underlying connection, but the idea is no longer disreputable even in scientific terms, for the notion of randomness itself has increasingly been subject to scrutiny in modern times. . . . For all its chaos, we are now entering an exciting time, when modern science and ancient magic can at last meet and come into dialogue.

In the ancient world divination was, of course, put down to the activity of gods and spirits. . . .In Northern Europe, the highest of all the gods, Odin was himself the discoverer and lord of the Runes. Odin in fact provides the model for mastery of the runic system. In Norse myth, he descends the World Tree and undergoes a sacrifice to haul up the Runes from Mímir’s Well. The Well of Mímir can be understood in several ways: as the psyche of the runecaster, the collective unconscious, and the world of energy forms underlying physical matter, for the story of Odin’s quest is really a code for the process of looking within and attaining therein knowledge of all the worlds. The Runes are the physical tokens of his hard-won wisdom, offered to those ‘to whom they may avail.’

How exactly do the Runes embody the wisdom of Odin? First, the runic signs carry many meanings. Each rune has a field of associations, partially preserved for us in three ancient ‘Rune poems’, which appear to be based on far older, oral traditions. In Norse myth, Odin was the god and patron of the oral tradition, so the wisdom of the Runes and the accumulated folk-wisdom they represent can be seen as flowing from him, and from various guises of the Goddess, from whose springs of knowledge Odin himself drew. For example, the image of the first rune, f, (fehu), is cattle. The primary correspondences are assets, wealth and gain, for in ancient Norse culture you were worth as much as your herd of cattle. In a Rune reading, each rune is interpreted as an omen of personal significance—thus fehu is titled as ‘Abundance’ in this book. Obviously, we would be cheered by the appearance of fehu in a reading for the present or near future! Yet, as will be seen, fehu’s association with wealth, good fortune and greed evoke far deeper mythical and legendary themes in traditional runelore.

Runes can teach us self-mastery and gift us its fruits. In the original sources, they are praised as a guide to action, a remedy for misfortune and a magical tool for promoting empowerment, fulfillment, prosperity and peace. This is the spirit in which the Runes function for us today.

Runelore

Nordic Runes is divided into three parts, much like the structure of a tree. The first part, "Runelore," follows the runic tradition back to its roots in pagan antiquity, introducing the reader to the history of the alphabet. Here you will encounter the world of runic mysteries, encoded in old scripts and inscriptions, transmitted by the Rune guilds, and echoed in the Rune poems. You will also learn the story of the Runes as told in the medieval Icelandic Eddas, those remarkable remnants of pagan Norse myth and literature. . .

The second part of this book, "Runestaves," is the ‘trunk’ of the tree, the store of vital sap wherein is distilled the waters of inspiration. Here you will find the twenty-four runestaves of the Elder Futhark presented along with their associations, meanings and unique wisdom.

The third part of Nordic Runes, "Runecasting," is like the branches of the tree, extending into the infinite possibilities of the future. . . . It is the ‘casting’ or laying-out of runestaves that sets the Runes in motion, as it were. Far from being a morbid, fate-bound exercise, runic divination is an empowering art that opens us to the myriad possibilities presented by life’s branching paths.

Table of Contents

Preface
The Origin of Runes and How to Use This Book

Part 1: Runelore
Odin's Gift
Divine Mysteries
Runes and Rune Guilds
The Rune Poems
Runes and Sagas
The Northern Tradition

Part 2: Runestaves
Guide to the Staves
Frey's Aett
Hagal's Aett
Týr's Aett

Part 3: Runecasting
Re-membering the Tradition
The Theory of Runic Divination
The Art of Runecasting
Spreads and Castings
A Final Word: The Rune Revival

Notes
Bibliography
Index to the Runes

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"The runes have an entire mythology and history, all of which is meticulously explained in Paul Mountfort's Nordic Runes."

"Nordic Runes by Paul Rhys Mountfort serves as an excellent guide for those wishing to understand and utilize the runes. . . . His tome is comprehensive and rests firmly on a solid foundation of scholarship. It is also user friendly and fun to read."

"More than just a clinical textbook on rune work, this book was a pleasure to read. . ."

Editorial Reviews

"Nordic Runes by Paul Rhys Mountfort serves as an excellent guide for those wishing to understand and utilize the runes. . . . His tome is comprehensive and rests firmly on a solid foundation of scholarship. It is also user friendly and fun to read."

Thor the Barbarian

"The runes have an entire mythology and history, all of which is meticulously explained in Paul Mountfort's Nordic Runes."

October 2003 Dell Magazines

"More than just a clinical textbook on rune work, this book was a pleasure to read. . ."

Roxanne

"Nordic Runes by Paul Rhys Mountfort serves as an excellent guide for those wishing to understand and utilize the runes. . . . His tome is comprehensive and rests firmly on a solid foundation of scholarship. It is also user friendly and fun to read."

"More than just a clinical textbook on rune work, this book was a pleasure to read. . ."

"The runes have an entire mythology and history, all of which is meticulously explained in Paul Mountfort's Nordic Runes."

From the Publisher

"More than just a clinical textbook on rune work, this book was a pleasure to read. . ."

The Beltane Papers Roxanne

"The runes have an entire mythology and history, all of which is meticulously explained in Paul Mountfort's Nordic Runes."

Dell Magazines

"More than just a clinical textbook on rune work, this book was a pleasure to read. . .

The Beltane Papers