LIBRARY
Varg Vikernes
Thulean Perspective
The Divine Runes
If you go to Amazon to look for books about runes you find dozens upon dozens of books about rune divination. Some thin and some thick, and they all offer you a way to divinate with runes; to predict the future. Many of them combine their "rune lore" with tarot cards, meditation, Yoga and all sorts of other Oriental practices.
Strangely enough, if we look for their sources for their seemingly immense knowledge about rune divination, we find very little.
That is, at first glance we find a lot. There are mentions of runes used for divination in "The Saga of Sigurd the Dragonslayer", in "The Volsung Saga", in "The Saga of the Greenlanders", in "The Saga of the People of Laxardal", in "The Saga of the Sworn Brothers" as well as in "The Saga of Egil Skallagrimsson".
That is, if you read the English translations of these texts...
Yes. If you read the English translations...
If you read the original texts though, you will find that the term "rúnar" (runes) are not mentioned even one single time in any of these texts. Instead you will see that the Norsemen carved "stafir" on pieces of wood, to predict the future. Or rather, to let chance decide.
Scholars agree though, that "stafir" must have been a reference to runes. But if they had carved runes on pieces of wood, why not call them runes!? It is not like this was not a well-known term back then. They had runes. They knew the runes. So why not call them runes, if they carved runes into pieces of wood? Ok, if they wrote "runes" in one saga, and "stafir" in another, we can agree that they used these terms interchangeably, but this is not the case. They only use the term "stafir" for this. Never "rúnar". Let this sink in: in all those sagas, not once is the term "rúnar" used.
I can mention, that in Tacitus' "Germania", there is mentioned that symbols are carved unto some pieces of wood, for the same purpose as given in the sagas: to let chance decide. And again, the term "rúnar" are not used, and I may add: from what we know runes did not even exist at the time. He wrote his book around 2000 years ago. The oldest runes found are about 1800 years old.
Well, I think the runes existed back then too, they are probably older than we think, but there is indeed no mention of them being used for divination anywhere. Not in "Germania", and certainly not in any of the sagas.
What we know instead, is that the Ancient Germanic tribes used "symbols" carved into pieces of wood, and that the Scandinavians used "stafir". And it was done not to "predict the future", but to let chance decide.
And yes, when they did not know any better, the ancients often let chance decide. "Shall we go to war over this or not?" If they could not decide, they would place their spears on the ground, and let a young man ride a horse over them. If the horse stepped on one of the spear shafts, it meant "war". If it did not, it meant "no war". They knew perfectly well that this was a game of chance. More commonly though, as we know from "Germania" and the sagas, they carved some symbols into pieces of wood, and threw them to the ground, to let chance decide. Like we throw a coin into the air today, "head or "tails", or cast a die. To let chance decide.
If you look up the word "stafr" (plural: "stafir") in a Norse dictionary, you will find this: "Staff, walking stick, stick, pillar" and also "used for signs telling you where the property ends/starts". But then at the very end, they add "rune"... not because it means rune though, but because the scholars think that all the references to "stafir" in the sagas are actually references to runes. So they added this meaning to the term. Then when they translate the texts into English, "stafir" is therefore translated into "rune".
Norse "Stafr" derives from proto-Germanic "stafaz", meaning "staff" or "stick". It does not mean rune. Scholar believe that it is used to mean "rúnar" in the sagas, but that is pure speculation. And their argument ends up being circular, because they gave "stafir" that meaning", and then they use their own dictionaries to "prove" that the "Vikings" used runes for "divination".
My simple claim is that they are wrong, and that if they had used runes for this, then they would have used the term runes too, in the sagas. At least once. But they don't.
Strangely enough, if we look for their sources for their seemingly immense knowledge about rune divination, we find very little.
That is, at first glance we find a lot. There are mentions of runes used for divination in "The Saga of Sigurd the Dragonslayer", in "The Volsung Saga", in "The Saga of the Greenlanders", in "The Saga of the People of Laxardal", in "The Saga of the Sworn Brothers" as well as in "The Saga of Egil Skallagrimsson".
That is, if you read the English translations of these texts...
Yes. If you read the English translations...
If you read the original texts though, you will find that the term "rúnar" (runes) are not mentioned even one single time in any of these texts. Instead you will see that the Norsemen carved "stafir" on pieces of wood, to predict the future. Or rather, to let chance decide.
Scholars agree though, that "stafir" must have been a reference to runes. But if they had carved runes on pieces of wood, why not call them runes!? It is not like this was not a well-known term back then. They had runes. They knew the runes. So why not call them runes, if they carved runes into pieces of wood? Ok, if they wrote "runes" in one saga, and "stafir" in another, we can agree that they used these terms interchangeably, but this is not the case. They only use the term "stafir" for this. Never "rúnar". Let this sink in: in all those sagas, not once is the term "rúnar" used.
I can mention, that in Tacitus' "Germania", there is mentioned that symbols are carved unto some pieces of wood, for the same purpose as given in the sagas: to let chance decide. And again, the term "rúnar" are not used, and I may add: from what we know runes did not even exist at the time. He wrote his book around 2000 years ago. The oldest runes found are about 1800 years old.
Well, I think the runes existed back then too, they are probably older than we think, but there is indeed no mention of them being used for divination anywhere. Not in "Germania", and certainly not in any of the sagas.
What we know instead, is that the Ancient Germanic tribes used "symbols" carved into pieces of wood, and that the Scandinavians used "stafir". And it was done not to "predict the future", but to let chance decide.
And yes, when they did not know any better, the ancients often let chance decide. "Shall we go to war over this or not?" If they could not decide, they would place their spears on the ground, and let a young man ride a horse over them. If the horse stepped on one of the spear shafts, it meant "war". If it did not, it meant "no war". They knew perfectly well that this was a game of chance. More commonly though, as we know from "Germania" and the sagas, they carved some symbols into pieces of wood, and threw them to the ground, to let chance decide. Like we throw a coin into the air today, "head or "tails", or cast a die. To let chance decide.
If you look up the word "stafr" (plural: "stafir") in a Norse dictionary, you will find this: "Staff, walking stick, stick, pillar" and also "used for signs telling you where the property ends/starts". But then at the very end, they add "rune"... not because it means rune though, but because the scholars think that all the references to "stafir" in the sagas are actually references to runes. So they added this meaning to the term. Then when they translate the texts into English, "stafir" is therefore translated into "rune".
Norse "Stafr" derives from proto-Germanic "stafaz", meaning "staff" or "stick". It does not mean rune. Scholar believe that it is used to mean "rúnar" in the sagas, but that is pure speculation. And their argument ends up being circular, because they gave "stafir" that meaning", and then they use their own dictionaries to "prove" that the "Vikings" used runes for "divination".
My simple claim is that they are wrong, and that if they had used runes for this, then they would have used the term runes too, in the sagas. At least once. But they don't.
***
The next thing we need to discuss in this context, is how the runes are used for "divination". Not historically, and certainly not in the sagas, as I have explained above, they were never used for that, but in modern times. In this "New Age".... In the dozens of dozens of "rune divination" books out there.
What is it they base their interpretations of the runes themselves on? What do we know about the runes!? How are they able to give you complex and intricate predictions, using the runes?
Well. We have rune carvings, of course. Most of them just say "ek erilaz" ("I am (now) noble"). They don't actually say anything about the runes themselves though. So... we learn nothing about the meaning of each individual rune from that.
What we have are the rune poems. They are our sole source for the names of the runes, and also the only information we have about each rune. We have 16 Old Norwegian poems, 16 Icelandic poems and 29 Anglo-Saxon poems. I am not going to list them all here, or translate them all, you can find them all translated in my wife's "The Runes Finally Explained" book, but I will give you an example.
The Old Norwegian (XIIIth century) poem for the rune Féhu (ᚠ) is:
Fé vældr frænda róge;
føðesk ulfr i skóge.
This is commonly translated into:
Wealth causes strife among kin;
the wolf is raised in the forest.
This translation was done by a scholar, ages ago, and all scholars since him have used his translation. You know... "sources". Not one of them seem to have tried to translate this on their own. If they had they would have found his translation to be sorely lacking.
Again, they have given a meaning to the term that was not there originally. Fé translates as "cattle", you see, and indeed, historically wealth has been measured in how many cows a person had. And because of that they claim "Fé" means "Wealth". But it means "cattle".
Also, "vældr" does not mean "causes" at all. It means "controls". As if that was not enough, the term "róge" does not mean "strife" at all. It means "dispute".
Yeah. Of the 4 words in the first line, 3 of them are mistranslated...
How is that even possible!? Are they doing this intentionally, or what?
The second line is also mistranslated, although less so than the first line. "Føðesk" does not mean "is raised" at all. It means "gives birth". Quite a different meaning, isn't it?
The poem correctly translates as:
Fé (cattle) controls the dispute of the friends;
the wolf gives birth in the forest.
I could go on, and show you how almost every single line in every single poem is mistranslated, but that is what my wife does, in her "The Runes Finally Explained" book, so I will leave it with this.
My point though, is that the rune poems used as a source for all the made-up "rune divination" practices are themselves mistranslations.
The problem is that the scholars who translated these poems did not understand them. They found no meaning to them. I am sure they could have translated them correctly, if they wanted to, but this correct translation made no sense to them, so they mistranslated them intentionally in an attempt to give them some meaning. They still made little sense though, and in the end the rune poems were written off as "meaningless" and "nonsensical", and "basically no more than the Scandinavian equivalent of "A" for Alpha, "B" for Beta, etc.".
If you understand the correct translations though, they make perfect sense, as demonstrated by my wife in her rune book.
But let us return to the subject of rune divination here. My point is that these scholarly mistranslations are the original source of information for all who try to give the runes a meaning. We literally have no other information about the meaning of the individual rune signs anywhere! Well, now we have my wife's book, of course, explaining what they actually mean, but this is not the source for these New Age "rune divination" books, I can assure you.
Note also, that there is nothing anywhere, in any source, telling us how they supposedly used runes for divination. At best, what we know is that the "stafir" (and not runes...) were carved on some pieces of wood. And that is all we know about it...
What is it they base their interpretations of the runes themselves on? What do we know about the runes!? How are they able to give you complex and intricate predictions, using the runes?
Well. We have rune carvings, of course. Most of them just say "ek erilaz" ("I am (now) noble"). They don't actually say anything about the runes themselves though. So... we learn nothing about the meaning of each individual rune from that.
What we have are the rune poems. They are our sole source for the names of the runes, and also the only information we have about each rune. We have 16 Old Norwegian poems, 16 Icelandic poems and 29 Anglo-Saxon poems. I am not going to list them all here, or translate them all, you can find them all translated in my wife's "The Runes Finally Explained" book, but I will give you an example.
The Old Norwegian (XIIIth century) poem for the rune Féhu (ᚠ) is:
Fé vældr frænda róge;
føðesk ulfr i skóge.
This is commonly translated into:
Wealth causes strife among kin;
the wolf is raised in the forest.
This translation was done by a scholar, ages ago, and all scholars since him have used his translation. You know... "sources". Not one of them seem to have tried to translate this on their own. If they had they would have found his translation to be sorely lacking.
Again, they have given a meaning to the term that was not there originally. Fé translates as "cattle", you see, and indeed, historically wealth has been measured in how many cows a person had. And because of that they claim "Fé" means "Wealth". But it means "cattle".
Also, "vældr" does not mean "causes" at all. It means "controls". As if that was not enough, the term "róge" does not mean "strife" at all. It means "dispute".
Yeah. Of the 4 words in the first line, 3 of them are mistranslated...
How is that even possible!? Are they doing this intentionally, or what?
The second line is also mistranslated, although less so than the first line. "Føðesk" does not mean "is raised" at all. It means "gives birth". Quite a different meaning, isn't it?
The poem correctly translates as:
Fé (cattle) controls the dispute of the friends;
the wolf gives birth in the forest.
I could go on, and show you how almost every single line in every single poem is mistranslated, but that is what my wife does, in her "The Runes Finally Explained" book, so I will leave it with this.
My point though, is that the rune poems used as a source for all the made-up "rune divination" practices are themselves mistranslations.
The problem is that the scholars who translated these poems did not understand them. They found no meaning to them. I am sure they could have translated them correctly, if they wanted to, but this correct translation made no sense to them, so they mistranslated them intentionally in an attempt to give them some meaning. They still made little sense though, and in the end the rune poems were written off as "meaningless" and "nonsensical", and "basically no more than the Scandinavian equivalent of "A" for Alpha, "B" for Beta, etc.".
If you understand the correct translations though, they make perfect sense, as demonstrated by my wife in her rune book.
But let us return to the subject of rune divination here. My point is that these scholarly mistranslations are the original source of information for all who try to give the runes a meaning. We literally have no other information about the meaning of the individual rune signs anywhere! Well, now we have my wife's book, of course, explaining what they actually mean, but this is not the source for these New Age "rune divination" books, I can assure you.
Note also, that there is nothing anywhere, in any source, telling us how they supposedly used runes for divination. At best, what we know is that the "stafir" (and not runes...) were carved on some pieces of wood. And that is all we know about it...
***
To conclude this...
In reality the very idea of "divination with runes" is speculative nonsense. As I have showed you, there is no real evidence that they ever used runes for that. As if that was not enough, the powers they attribute to each rune, when they MAKE UP a way to "predict the future with runes" are, just modern interpretations of mistranslations of rune poems...
"Rune divination" is nothing but a scam. The people who write these books are scam artists, who "make up shit" and then present it as "Norse practices".
The scholars, who see the rune poems as "meaningless", are not much better.
In reality, as demonstrated by my wife in her "The Runes Finally Explained", the runes have deep meaning, deep purpose, and are very much an important part of our heritage, supported by mythology and traditions.
The runes are not used for divination. They are divine...
I can add that when runes are mentioned in mythology, in "Hávamál", they are mentioned with rebirth: when Ódinn is reborn (again) as he falls down from the tree of life, and picks up the runes.
In reality the very idea of "divination with runes" is speculative nonsense. As I have showed you, there is no real evidence that they ever used runes for that. As if that was not enough, the powers they attribute to each rune, when they MAKE UP a way to "predict the future with runes" are, just modern interpretations of mistranslations of rune poems...
"Rune divination" is nothing but a scam. The people who write these books are scam artists, who "make up shit" and then present it as "Norse practices".
The scholars, who see the rune poems as "meaningless", are not much better.
In reality, as demonstrated by my wife in her "The Runes Finally Explained", the runes have deep meaning, deep purpose, and are very much an important part of our heritage, supported by mythology and traditions.
The runes are not used for divination. They are divine...
I can add that when runes are mentioned in mythology, in "Hávamál", they are mentioned with rebirth: when Ódinn is reborn (again) as he falls down from the tree of life, and picks up the runes.
Varg Vikernes
21.04.2024
