Winifred Hodge Rose
Here I’m sharing my approach to using the Runes for divination and guidance. As I’m sure you’re well aware, there are many other approaches that can be taken, and many Runemasters whose skill, knowledge, and training are greater than mine. I’m just sharing one approach among many possibilities. As you may realize from the material on this website, I like to take a rather mystical approach to Heathen topics, including the Runes. Here I discuss how the ‘mood of the Runes’ influences my own moods, the moods of my souls, and how I use those moods to guide my Runic divinations and resulting actions. I don’t specifically discuss this in terms of my Heathen soul lore approach, but will simply note here that these ‘Rune-Moods’ tend to affect different souls differently, adding layers of complexity and depth to the process. But here, I’ll keep it simple….well, simpler, anyway!
For me, each of the Runes has a ‘mood,’ and this mood is more than we tend to think of today when we use the word ‘mood.’ Mood is a fundamental aspect of soul, in the Heathen soul lore that I explore. The Runes express moods and nuances that are also expressed in the ancient lore: in myths, legends, poetry, sagas, tales, folklore, landscape, historical events and trends, and fundamentally in the old languages themselves. Heathen Deities speak through the Runes, expressing their own moods and states of being as responses to one’s query.
Each of the Runes has its own complex, multivariate, nuanced mood; it’s not a matter of just “Oh, I’m a happy Rune!” “I’m a grumpy one!” When I am given a Rune to ponder in divination, I sink into all the cultural / historical / spiritual nuances each Rune offers, based on my experience and learning, which may differ from how others perceive it. It starts, for me, by meditatively repeating the Rune-poem(s) associated with that Rune in the original language(s), and follows cues, clues, and moods stretching out in all directions from there. One of the aspects of this approach is using free-association with the words, images, cultural contexts of the Rune poems—sort of like the use of kennings in Old Norse poetry, but not exactly; it’s a looser approach.
Here is an example using the Ingwaz Rune, with its Old English Rune Poem in the original, then my translation.
Ing wæs ærest mid East-Denum gesewen secgun, oþ he siððan est ofer wæg gewat; wæn æfter ran; ðus Heardingas ðone hæle nemdun.
“Ing was first said to have been seen among the East-Danes; soon after he departed eastward over the waves (or the way), his wain running after. Thus the Heardingas named the hero.”
There are so many cues and links to literature, art, language, etc. here; I’ll note just a few. Ing is a God, also known as Frey, Ing-Frea, Ingvi-Frey. The activity of the poem sounds much like the worship of Nerthus, Earth Mother, described in Tacitus Germania (Ch. 40 on the Langobardi). Nerthus lived on an island and her wain / wagon fared about the land during holy tides. In my understanding, Ing is likely her son (Godly ‘genealogies’ are a topic I plan to write about at some point!). The word secgun probably means “was said,” but the word secg can also mean “sedge, reed, sword, man, warrior, hero, ocean,” all of which are relevant to Ing and to the poem as word / idea associations. The word est is assumed to be an alternate spelling of ‘east,’ but using word-associations here again, the Anglo-Saxon word ‘est’ means “favor, grace, bounty, kindness, love, pleasure,” all of which, again, are closely associated with Ing-Frey.
Other associations, questions, images…there’s strangeness here: how is he running across the waves, with his wain following after? Weird! Are there other mysteries in the lore that shed light on this? Art, folklore? Or does ‘wæg’ refer to ‘way,’ rather than ‘waves,’ which it could: then what and where is ‘Ing’s Way?’ Is it anything like the very ancient and historical Watling Street that crossed the landscape of England, whose name derives from ‘hwæt,’ meaning ‘active, bold, brave,’ like the hero Ing? Either way, why is his wain (wagon) running after him rather than him riding in it?
Why did he show up among the Heardingas (a tribe), only to leave soon after? What’s the message there? The last line, “thus the Heardingas called the hero,” may logically refer to them giving this hero his name, Ing. Yet his name is likely much older, coming from the three sons of Mannus in the passage from Tacitus Germania (Ch. 2) telling how original tribes came to be, including the Ingævones, the tribe of Ing. I might read this line, instead, as the Heardingas giving Ing the title of ‘hero,’ and wonder what deeds of his caused him to be named so.
There are somewhat parallel images similar to this Rune-poem in the lore, as well as the Nerthus connection, offering more associations. It sounds like the beginning of the Beowulf poem, where Scyld Scefing is discovered as a baby floating in a boat on the ocean, and after his long life and his death, is again sent out in a funeral ship over the waves. The same way Baldr was sent out in his funeral ship, who was also often called a hero. Ing-Frey is God of the burial mounds, among other things, where often important people were buried in ships, or their graves outlined with rocks in the shape of a ship.
Birth / appearance in Midgard, the deeds of a hero and the blessings offered thereby, departing by ship or by mysterious ways and means to other worlds…all of these images weave together into a mystical mood. The possibilities go on and on; there’s so much to be seen in each Rune poem, and the more so, the more familiar one is with the lore, languages, cultures that gave rise to the Runes.
So, this Ing Rune came up for me recently, during a reading I did on how to respond to a certain situation in my life. I gave it time to create a mood in me, resulting in a mood of nostalgia and necessity, of myself as represented by the ‘hero’ of the poem. I went somewhere, wading through the waters and the sedges, exploring. I was welcomed when I arrived, but soon after I had to leave. I left, traveling over the waves to an unknown destination, by mysterious means. But as I left, I gained the name of ‘hero’ and thus I was remembered. This fit the situation beautifully for me and guided my subsequent actions well. It communicated with me through mood, imagery, overtones derived from the old culture of the Rune poem.
In a different situation, a different reading, the ‘mood’ might have been quite a different one, picking up on some of the many other cues and connotations of the poem. But without a good background in the culture, lore, language, this method wouldn’t work. One doesn’t necessarily need to be born into a given culture, but it is necessary to immerse oneself in the chosen culture—the real culture as far as possible, not romantic reconstructions of it—to make the best use of this approach.
I assume that methods of divination from other cultures, like the Ogham Fews or the Coelbren for the Druids, the I Ching, and many other culturally-based divination methods from around the world, require the same kind of cultural immersion to extract the greatest amount of meaning from them. Including their ‘mood’ as I describe it here. I suspect that one reason the Tarot is so popular these days is that it developed within, and reflects, so much of modern Western culture (‘modern’ meaning the last several centuries, but with a flurry of greater development of the Tarot during our present time). Meaning that it’s easier to access the ‘mood of the Tarot’ than it is the moods of divination methods that arose from languages, cultures, and symbols less familiar to us today.
Concerning the use of reversed Rune-staves to designate negative meanings of the Runes, with upright Runes designating positive meanings, I don’t feel the need for this when using my ‘mood of the Runes’ approach. The ‘mood’ created by the casting, the Rune-poems and all their cultural connections, can just as well be baneful, negative, doubtful, mixed, etc, as it can be positive. I let the mood arise, and then respond as needed, whether the mood is positive or negative. In the example I gave above, the mood was bittersweet: I would have liked to have stayed where I was welcomed, but something called me away, regardless. Now I’m still following that mood, seeking what it is that calls me; the casting of that Rune was only the beginning for me.
The mood of each Rune has grown from many sources and is expressed in the Rune poem(s) for each one, but I think the fundamental source is the Norns and their Well of Wyrd. In the Old Norse poem the Voluspa (Poetic Edda), the Norns are described here:
Urdh one is called, Verdandi another,
Scoring on a slip of wood, Skuld is third.
Layers they lay, life choose
For children of Aldr (mortals), speak orlog.
(verses 20-21, my translation)
The ‘scoring on a slip of wood’ must refer to carving Runes, whether the ones we humans know, or other Runes specific to the Norns and their mysteries. The verb ‘to shape,’ in all the Germanic languages, including modern English, is derived from Proto-Germanic and Proto-Indo-European words for ‘carving, cutting.’ The Norns score or carve Runes on slips of wood, and they shape orlog / wyrd—the word ‘shape’ is often used in reference to their actions. (I’m explaining this in much more depth in the book I’m writing about orlog.) In the process of doing so, what the Norns shape is infused with its own mood, arising from all the layers of orlog in the Well that went into its shaping—all the layers of history, culture, language, events, godly influences, etc. This includes the shaping of each of the Runes, as well as the shaping of people, events, etc.
The mood of each Rune interfaces in its own way with the moods of our own souls, our own personal history, our wyrd, outlook, the language we speak and think in, many personal factors. The result is a combination of the mood of each Rune with the moods of our own souls, different for each of us. This creates a web of understanding within us, a set of lenses through which to pursue divination and other work with the Runes from our own perspective, our own roots of being blended with the roots of the Runes and the wisdom they bear.
Some forms of divination are better for some kinds of questions than others. I find that questions relating to what actions I should take, what response to make to a given situation, what direction I should go in, and similar questions work well for the ‘mood of the Runes.’ The results of the divination indicate one or several interwoven ‘moods.’ I then explore in my imagination what actions or responses would create such a mood in me—whether it is a desired mood that I wish to encourage, or a negative mood I want to avoid, or one that I feel is necessary for me to follow my wyrd. What would cause me to respond with that mood, or require that mood for its pursuit and achievement, or warn me off a course of action by its negativity? I then follow that rede of the Runes. Again, ‘mood’ here is more than ‘just a mood.’ It is a movement, a coloration, a music or resonance of the soul, and it can be deliberately chosen and strengthened, or withstood and resisted, as well as being something we ‘just fall into.’
The different Futharks—Elder, Younger, Icelandic, Norwegian, Anglo-Frisian—with their Rune Poems do offer different overall moods, and when using this approach one might feel more drawn to one of these over the others. I’ve been using the 29-Rune Anglo-Frisian Futhorc as my primary one, which includes the Elder Futhark within it, because I am most familiar with the Anglo-Saxon language and because I’ve worked with those Rune Poems for so many years now. But I realize I’d benefit from making more use of the Younger Futhark Rune Poems as well. I’m working on that, with help from Ann Groa Sheffield’s outstanding book Long Branches: Runes of the Younger Futhark, which is ideal for gaining deeper cultural understanding and connotations of these Runes and thus leading one to resonate more strongly with their ‘moods.’
So, this is one approach to the Runes, which I’m sure others use as well, whether deliberately or just because it happens that way: the Runes move our moods and our souls, and we respond to them accordingly.