Runic writing was once common in Northern Europe for the 13th century, in the Swedish province of Dalarna until the 19th century. But today the runes are not forgotten. Attention to them is so strong that it even gives rise to pseudo-historical theories.
Runes - what are they?
Runes are a common name for symbols (letters) in the ancient Germanic and Scandinavian alphabets. It is divided into three groups - atta. Each att consists of eight runes. The first Germanic runic "alphabet" is called the Elder Futhark.
According to the phonetic correspondences of the runes of the first atta - f, u, th, a, r, k - the alphabet got its name. Runes were carved on wood and stones, therefore, they were formed as a set of straight stripes, which were convenient to knock out in hard material.
The direction of writing generally went from left to right, although in the earliest inscriptions bustrofedon is often found (from ancient Greek βοῦς - bull and στρέφω - I turn, like the movements of a bull in a plow). This is a way of writing, in which the direction alternated depending on the parity of the line - if the first line is written from right to left, then the second - from left to right, the third - again from right to left, and when the direction is changed, the letters were written in a mirror.
In total, during the research on the territory of Sweden, about three thousand runic inscriptions were found, about two thousand more were found in the regions of Denmark, Greenland, Norway, Iceland and other northern lands.
Promotional video:
Runes history
Appearing among the northern peoples at the beginning of the 3rd century, the runic writing received its true dawn in the Christian period of Scandinavia. Despite the widespread use of Latin languages and scripts, many ancient alphabets, including Old Icelandic, have survived and were used.
In addition, the rune enriched the Latin alphabet with several new letters - they denoted sounds that were not found in Latin. There were even Latin-language inscriptions made in the runic alphabet. Christian prayers were often written in runes, or their initial words: "Pater noster" and "Ave Maria".
Records of Latin words marked with runes found in Sweden and Norway confirm the merger. Often the ancient Turkic alphabet is also called runes. Due to the external similarity of the symbols on the stones, the Kyok-Türkic writing, which originated in the 6th century in Siberia, and the ancient Hungarian writing, and even the hypothetical "Old Slavic alphabet", periodically become "runes".
Varieties of runes
The meaning of the word "rune" itself is close to the word "whispering" in the languages of Northern Europe. The word "run" in modern Irish means "secret" or "solution" - the Irish used runes for fortune telling and making decisions. But when the need for writing arose, the rune system formed the basis of the alphabet. Scientists have archaeological evidence of the connection between writing and runes. In the modern Russian alphabet there are 10 letters, in the form of the signs of the runes, and in the Roman alphabet there are 13 such letters.
During the III century BC, the runes spread from Denmark to Scandinavia, and subsequently to the continent. Currently, it is customary to distinguish between several types of runic writing: common Germanic, Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, "Markomanic", Icelandic, Danish, Helsingian and other runes, although they are similar to each other, but, according to runologists, belong to different eras and practices.
Stone notepads
In the last century, the Norwegian runologist A. Liszöl proved that the runic writing did not confirm belonging to any secret communities, but was publicly available. Examples of the use of runes as "household notes" by the 11th century include messages such as "Love me, I love you, Gunnhild, kiss me, I know you" and courier notes like "Torkel, coinmaster, sends you pepper." Runic calendars also existed in medieval Europe.
Many contemporaries like to mystify ancient records, but some runes carry a meaning equal to the announcement from the administration of housing and communal services at your entrance. For example, they report the construction of a bridge or the time for collecting taxes. Thanks to the runestones, it was possible to learn about many events that influenced the course of the history of a certain settlement, but, unfortunately, very few stone "history books" contain references to dates. One of these stones says that "the drangi laid siege to Hedeby." It is very difficult to say for sure which year these runes are dated, because the medieval city of Hedeba was famous for its wealth, which is why it was often besieged by enemies. The runes not only narrated about the events, but also contained an attitude towards them. This can be seen in the example of carved songs: drapa - a song of praise, nid - blasphemy. Moreover, the composition of the Nids was prohibited by law.
Runes creators
Despite the general availability of runic writing, real masterpieces of the correct form and content were created only by professional craftsmen, eryls. "I am called insidious, I am called a raven, I, eril, I carve runes" - an inscription on a Swedish runestone of the 6th century. Modern runologists can name about 140 names of ancient masters, cutting off the work of amateurs with low quality of carving and errors in the text.
One of the first Christian masters is considered to be Kunar, who lived at the beginning of the 11th century. Thanks to the two stones signed by the master, it was possible to establish that more than forty works belong to him on the basis of stylistic, paleographic and linguistic features. Another eril, Asmuntr Karasun, is the author of 22 signed 11th century runestones. He is also credited with another 24 to 54 stones, based on the spelling, paleographic and pictorial similarities of the works.
Russian runes
Creating Slavic writing in the 9th century, Cyril and Methodius took their native Greek alphabet as a basis. The first alphabet of the Slavs, Glagolitic, although it served the emergence of the Slavic writing and literary Old Slavonic language, due to the Greek writing of letters, it was later reworked into the ancient alphabet of the Slavs, known to us as the Cyrillic alphabet.
The existence of the so-called "Slavic runes" has not been proven today. Until now, many people identify with the Slavic runes the writing of the "Veles Book", recognized by the scientific community as a hoax. In the 18th century, it was announced that the "Venedian runes" were found on figurines from the Temple of Retra, but these figurines, like the Velesov Book, were found to be fake.
Runes of modernity
The runes were used in the symbols of the National Socialist Party of Germany (two S runes on a black background). In total, according to Himmler's decree, 14 of the 24 senior futark runes were used in the SS symbols, with the help of which the main stages of career advancement and the personal characteristics of members of the organization were indicated.
JRR Tolkien created for his books special languages of the inhabitants of Middle-earth, including "Moon Runes" and "kirt", invented by him on the basis of Futhark. Programmers probably know that runes were also used when creating unicode. Starting with version Unicode 3.0, the runic signs were assigned separate positions (16A0-16F0), and a total of 76 runic symbols were entered, including various forms of the same sign depending on the runic alphabet in which it was included.