Recommendations for Studying the Runes?

[sdi]

My wife has been working with Tarot for years, but lately she's been finding that it just doesn't work for her any more—the readings are flaky and she can't feel a connection to it anymore. Casting about for a replacement, she's felt drawn to the runes. I was wondering if any of the heathens here could recommend a book for her to study? In case it helps, she is of a practical (rather than philosophical) disposition and meshes well with plant lore (she is an herbalist).

(Incidentally, this has me curious about the well-being of the occult community generally, since a divinatory apparatus failing sounds, well, ominous. Has anybody else experienced similar? Her intuition is generally good and if the runes work well, then perhaps heathenism is healthier than most? For whatever it's worth, I use geomancy and have had no issues whatsoever.)

Comments

[k_a_nitz]

For runes, if she can read German then Karl Spiesberger's "Runenpraxis der Eingeweihten. Runenexerzitien. Die Erhaltung der Gesundheit, die Erlangung von Erfolg und magischer Kräfte durch die Macht der Runen" is very practically oriented.

In English, Edred Thorsson's "The Big Book of Runes and Rune Magic: How to Interpret Runes, Rune Lore, and the Art of Runecasting" is a more recent gathering up of his work on runes into one book and can substitute for most of his earlier works IMHO. His earlier work "Alu, an Advanced Guide to Operative Runology", from memory, has some information on runic yoga which is otherwise mostly only found in German works like Spiesberger's.

[sdi]

Thank you! Alas, no, we are dopey Americans and are not bilingual, but I've passed on the recommendation for Thorsson.

[jprussell]

I agree with k_a_nitz - if your wife only wants one book that will cover divination well, as well as providing room to explore Runic magic, Thorsson's Big Book is the way to go. If she wants to focus only on divination and is looking to save some money, his older book The Runecaster's Guidebook would work, but its contents are wholly contained in the Big Book.

That being said, Thorsson has a very particular, very developed take on what the Runes mean, and so studying him tends to pull you into that, and your wife may or may not find that to her taste. For starters, he's been involved in Temple of Set stuff, and while he seems to be one of the more reasonable "left hand path" types I've encountered, a certain individualistic "will-to-power" attitude colors many of his interpretations.

So, if she is looking for other perspectives, I found this list immensely helpful when starting out (but note that all of the Thorsson titles on it are superseded by the Big Book, which is mostly a collection and light edit of those previous books). If she's looking for a "bare bones" approach, focusing on the literal meanings and adding any color and symbolism herself, Plowright's The Rune Primer and Pollington's Rudiments of Rune Lore are the way to go. Helrunar is a much, hmm, weirder take, but the loose, free-association style has some occasionally useful insights.

If your wife is a meditator, there's a third option she might consider (though all of these can, of course, be combined): meditate on the Rune Poems directly. There three primary Rune Poems: the Old English Rune Poem, the Old Norse Rune Poem, and the Old Icelandic Rune Poem. You can find translations of these online, but there's a collection edited by P D Brown and Michael Moynihan which includes translations of all three, along with an assortment of modern "Rune poems" that come at the Runes in different ways. Thorsson, under his real name Stephen Flowers, has also published a short translation of the Rune Poems called, imaginatively enough The Rune Poems, which is nice because it contains tables of Icelandic helrunar, which come from the later medieval/early modern Icelandic Galdrabok (essentially grimoires) tradition, but which sometimes seem to have derived from the "real" Runes. Unfortunately, this last one seems to be back out of print after being readily available again for a while. Regardless, if you get Thorsson's Big Book, his translations are in there too (or in most, if not all of his books on Runes).

Anyway, in the poems, each Runestave is given a stanza, and they make for first-rate meditative material. One caveat: if your wife works with the Elder Futhark (24 Runes to the Younger Futhark's 16 or the Anglo-Frisian Futhorc's 26-33, depending on which version you use), the only poem with a stanza for every Runestave will be the Old English one, but the Old Icelandic and Old Norse are still helpful for the 16 Runestaves they do cover.

Lastly, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention The Teutonic Way: Magic by Kveldulf Gundarsson. Gundarsson was a student of Thorsson's, so his interpretations aren't so different, but what this book includes that the others don't are some guided pathworkings/scryings for the Runes. I've come to prefer self-directed scrying, of course, but it was while meditating through one of these guided ones that I had my very first TSW religious experience, so maybe there's something there!

Anyhow, I know that's a lot, but if you or she have any other questions, I'll be happy to share what I can. There's some other titles I've heard good things about, but haven't checked out myself, so I can't speak to them directly (like Long Branches for the Younger Futhark, or Living Runes by Galina Krasskova, whom I respect and have found useful on other matters).

Good luck!
Jeff

[sdi]

Thank you, what a wealth of information! I've passed all of it along, and I'll let you know if she has questions.

In fact, it might interest you that its already proved helpful: we did a search and the library happened to have a copy of Plowright, and as I opened it at random, it happened to fall on a page of rune meanings. My wife was looking over my shoulder and commented, "Oh, that's the rune I saw in my dream!" I read the meaning of that rune to her and it provided a good description of the situation she's been grappling with lately (and which her dream was about). I know she wanted to look over some of the other books before committing to anything, but casting a wide net let us find that quickly!

[jprussell]

Wow, synchronicitous! I like Plowright's book for its straightforwardness - he tries to give you the bare literal meanings of the Runes so that you can develop your own intuition on them. I can see the value in that, especially now that I have some more experience, but when I was starting out (and often still now!) I often found myself going "yeah, but what does it mean so I can make an interpretation?!"

[joanhello]

When I felt drawn to the runes, I asked my friend Raven Kaldera, who works with the Anglo-Saxon rather than the Norse runes. He did not recommend a book, saying that the runes prefer to be taught as part of an oral tradition. So I spent an afternoon with him while he info-dumped at me. My memory has never been the greatest, so I took notes, which I later transferred to a blank book. I have been using that book to record my readings ever since.

[sdi]

Thank you, that's fascinating and helpful! I've always found it interesting how every divinatory system has it's own personality. We don't know anyone who practices runes, but I've noted it to her and we'll keep an eye out.