The rune masters and vikings wore striking clothes, which you could recognize easily. Runes were carved on amulets, drinking cups and javelins, and carved on the lintel of the houses and at the bow of the Viking ships. Runes for fertility, and a curse for the abolition of a curse, for birth and death. There were runes and spells to influence the weather, the tides, the seed, love and health. The are of the rune masters touched every aspect of life, the most holy to the everyday, practical. As Bishop Wulfila translated the Bible into fourth century Gothic, he used in Markus 4, 11 ('you are given the knowledge about the secret of the kingdom of God') for the word runa 'secret'.įrom the beginning, the runes also had a ritual function, for divination and invocation of higher powers that could affect the lives and happiness of the tribe. Elliott writes that the tribal leaders and advisers of Anglo-Saxon England called their consultations, which they held in secret meetings, 'Runes'. The influence of the runes on their time was undeniable. Nothing was left except the sagas, the scattered fragments of runic history and the rune itself With the rune-masters, their wisdom died as well.

They were probably transformed from the Tarot and the Chinese Book of Changes and were used as the I Ching of the Vikings at that time.

Some indications show that the early runes were not used so much for writing, but rather as magical signs, that means, they were used in magic and for divination (but there is no direct evidence of this). The original meaning of the word rune is 'secret, or something hidden'.

Rune magic desktop backgrounds