Runes Are The Name given to the earliest Germanic written characters, characters that differ from any modern alphabet. Their precise origin remains unknown, though it is assumed that they were based on a Mediterranean alphabet (Greek, Latin, or Northern Italic), Latin because of the great impact of Roman culture on Northern Europe being the most probable. In any case, the several related Northern Italic alphabets used in inscriptions found in the Alps from the fourth to the first century B.C. demonstrate the most obvious parallels to runic shapes. The earliest extant runes can be dated archeologically to the second century A.D., but it is assumed that the use of runes predates this period.

The term rune is documented in various individual Germanic languages (for example Gothic rūna Old High German rūna(stab), Old English rūn, Old Norse rún) and means primarily “secret.” According to epigraphic and literary evidence they are considered to be “descended from the gods” (as recorded on the sixth-century Noleby stone in southern Sweden). Other sources suggest the god Odin invented or discovered them (thus the Norse poem known as “The Words of the High One,” Hávamál stanza 138–39). The myth that a god created the script is widespread and is the basis of the idea of the “power of writing in belief and superstition.” Runic writing is, like any other script, a means of communication that can be used for profane and sacred as well as magical purposes.

The usual arrangement of the twenty-four runes does not follow a formal alphabet, but represents an independent and characteristic sequence that, taken from the sound value of its first six characters, is called the futhark:

A futhark that corresponds essentially to these letters is present, alone or together with other runic inscriptions, on a total of nine monuments from the fifth and sixth centuries, among them the Kylver stone and the bracteates (thin, round, uniface gold medallions which were worn as amulets), from Vadstena and Grumpan in Sweden. The bracteate tradition shows the futhark divided into three groups (each of eight runes) or genders (ON ætt, pl. ættir). This makes it possible to use them as a secret script, in a variety of graphic ways, by indicating firstly the group and then the position within the group. But the cryptographic use is for the older runes only uncertainly attested.