Hand crafted and forged by Paul. Our pagan blacksmith and practitioner of Traditional Witchcraft! Paul uses the same one inch wide blade stock he uses for making athames and bolines. The blade stock is cut length wise first into two half inch wide strips. This is then further cut into half inch squares. The jagged edges are beveled until clean and straight. The squares are then heated in the forge until soft enough for the runes to be stamped onto them. They are then brushed/burnished until shiny. The resulting runes are slightly smaller than half inch square. It’s hard for a blacksmith to work with tiny squares of metal while wearing safety equipment and so making these runes by hand is fiddly and complicated. This is reflected in the price.
The mystery of the runes… Rune stones are an ancient proto-Germanic tradition dating back to the 1st century AD. The Elder Futhark consists of a runic alphabet of 24 letters, usually made out of wood or metal or stone that were used as a method of fortune-telling and protection sigils.
The first completion of the total alphabet was the Elder Futhark runes in the 5th century AD, that are most often used still today, and then the Younger Futhark stones were adapted by the Vikings and other Nordic tribes and continued until Medieval times. Many rune stones still exist in England and were still used by the Anglo Saxons up till around the year 900AD. Runes stones are full of powerful and magical history, and so were highly venerated and used with care.
Many ancient buildings in Scandinavia still have “Bind Runes” etched into them for protection or luck or fertility! Even in modern times, the famous “BlueTooth” symbol is a bindrune!
In the Norse and Saxon cultures and across other Northern Europeans, it was believed that they held strong divinatory powers and as such were taken very seriously. The origin of word “rune” stems from the Germanic word for “mystery” or “secret”, and similar findings are present in Old Irish Gaelic, Welsh and Old English, sometimes also meaning “miracle”. In Lithuanian it can me “to speak”, and in Finnish it can also mean “poem”.
These days, runes are used as a method of connecting to one’s higher self, inner guidance and tapping into intuition as a method of foretelling what the future may hold and offering advice (similar to Tarot Cards).
Just like Tarot they can also be used in spells and manifestation ritual work by witches and pagans, lay out the runes on your altar or charging plate that corresponds to your desires and outcomes.
This set of runes includes the 24 Elder Futhark and an extra “Wryd” or blank rune is included.
A carrying pouch with drawstring is also included.