Runes for Beginners

Most rune books tell you what each rune means and stop there. This one teaches you to read runes together: in their places, beside each other, and across a whole cast on a cloth. You draw your first rune in Chapter 1. By the last chapter you can cast nine runes and read the whole pattern.

Every one of the 24 Elder Futhark runes has its own full entry: its shape and how to say its name, what history actually records, the old rune poems in the original with a plain English translation, the story that goes with it, and then the reading. You get its meaning upright and reversed, a worked example from a real question, what it says about love, work and home, and how it speaks beside other runes. History and modern practice are kept clearly apart, so you always know which is which.

Then the book puts the runes to work: seven layouts, from a single rune to the Three Norns and the nine-rune cast; seven complete worked readings that go from the question to the answer; and twelve practice readings with an answer key, so you can check your own interpretations. There are sixty-one rune pairs to look up, a quick reference, and chapters on choosing or making a set, writing your name in runes, bind runes and charms.

You don't need to own runes yet. Chapter 1 shows you how to make a paper set in ten minutes, and a free printable pack adds a rune set to cut out, a casting sheet and a thirty-day plan.