We consider three different Futharks as covering the period: Elder Futhark and Younger Futhark. Instead the systems continued to develop. In terms of Viking runes in Scandinavia and elsewhere, there isn’t just one single set. In the Viking Age, this was no everyday alphabet. What we do know is that runic inscriptions were typically reserved to remember moments or people of great importance. The mystical quality of runes is often cited but is rarely borne out by actual findings. It’s likely that the word does indeed refer to ‘secrets’ as in the beginning, runes were developed by and known only to the elite. The word has similar meanings in celtic language although in others it refers to cutting with a knife, speech or miracle. The name rune comes from the Germanic root run- meaning secret or whisper. It was dropped from the Scandinavian and English languages in favour of ‘th’ but it lives on in Icelandic. You’ll regularly encounter it throughout old Norse and Anglo-Saxon literature. If you’ve ever wondered where the letter Þ (known as thorn) comes from, it’s from the runes.

Instead, scholars refer to the Scandinavian runic systems as a Futhark or Fuþark after the first 6 letters: F, U, Th/Þ, A, R and K. The runes don’t start with A and B, they start with F and U, which could lead to some interesting problems! We often see the rune systems referred to as ‘runic alphabets’, which is a perfectly acceptable term for most people.īut alphabet comes from ‘alpha beta’ or ‘aleph beth’ the two first letters in the Greek and Hebrew alphabets.

The Gothic Hypothesis sees them develop through the East Germanic expansion through areas such as modern-day Ukraine and Belarus. The West Germanic Hypothesis sees them develop via the nomadic groups around the Elbe river. How we get from Italy to Scandinavia is also up for discussion! As the runes first appear in Denmark and Northern Germany, there are two hypotheses for how they got there. It’s possible that they came from the Etruscan alphabet, which went on to become the Latin alphabet that English and most Western languages use to some extent today.

Elder futhark rune circle