Book: Meanings Of The Runes by Bernard King

from The Elements of Runes by Bernard King.

As with all scripts, the runes grew and evolved with use, taking on different meanings in different areas. The Norwegian, Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon runic poems all provide variants which, for the beginner, serve to confuse the issue rather than clarifying it. Because of this I have consistently used the (reconstructed) Common Germanic names throughout this book.

While the role played by the runic poems must, because of their comparatively late dates, be suspect when attempting to consider the earliest assigned meanings of the rune-names, they served a useful mnemonic role at the time of their composition. In all probability there was a poem which gave the names of the Common Germanic Futhark, but it would have been too early, or too secret in later times, to have been recorded.

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