By Johanna Wittenberg

Vikings are often portrayed as illiterate brutes, but that is inaccurate. They shared a written language with their Germanic cousins. The earliest examples of runic writing dates back to the second century AD, though experts are unsure where and when the runes originated.

The runic alphabet is referred to as the Futhark, after the first letters. The runes originally had 24 letters (the Elder Futhark), but around 800 CE was simplified to 16 runes, known as the Younger Futhark. The runes were divided into groups of eight.

Rune stones stand throughout Scandinavia, monuments to lost kinfolk carved by artisans, leading to the conclusion that only a select few were adept in rune carving. But evidence abounds that runes were carved on wood and therefore lost to decay. Rune-carved pieces of wood have been found bearing everything from love notes to written instructions to a spouse, suggesting that Vikings used runes as readily as we write today. There is evidence that runes were taught to young people in the memorable carving, “I sit and learn the runes, I stand up and fart!”–Most likely not composed by a scholar.

Ownership is found on items, such as a bucket from the Oseberg Burial inscribed with “Sigrid owns me”. Other items are inscribed with the maker’s name. Rune stone monuments usually bear the name of the carver as well as the person who commissioned the memorial, suggesting that the carving of a rune stone was a skill akin to headstone carving.

The Vikings left graffiti in distant places, such as “Halfdan was here,” perhaps inscribed by a bored Varangian guard on the marble floor of Istanbul’s mosque Hagia Sofia. One of the 9-foot-tall marble lions, originally from Greece, that guard the Venetian Arsenal, bears two serpentine runic inscriptions on its shoulders.

While the runes were a mundane alphabet, the word Rune means “secret” and they were believed to have magical powers and predictive meanings. They were used by the adept to predict the future and cast spells. Runes of protection were carved on weapons and amulets. A wooden staff found among the treasures of the Oseberg ship bears a cryptic inscription that some interpret as a spell.

In Egil’s saga, a would-be rune master carves runes into a piece of whalebone and puts them in a sick woman’s bed. The woman becomes deathly ill until Egil, a runemaster, finds the bone and shaves off the toxic inscription, replacing it with one that restores the victim to health.

Runes were used for fortune telling. As well as representing a letter, each rune had several meanings. They were cut into chips of wood and colored with the carver’s blood, then put into a cup and cast onto a cloth, then interpreted by how they lay. Hence the saying, “Let the chips fall as they may.” Bindrunes are spells in which several runes are combined to create a single symbol of power. The Runes can also be chanted in spells called Galdr.

There is much speculation but no certainty as to the origins of the Runes. The collection of Old Norse poems called the Havamal tells how the god Odin gained the runes by performing a shamanistic ritual in which he wounded himself with a spear, then hung himself from a tree. After hanging for nine nights without food or drink, the runes came to him in a vision.

Runes were used in Scandinavia well into the middle ages. In Bergen many pieces of wood were found inscribed with runes, mostly everyday messages, receipts, etc, as well as in magical spells and prognostication.