Types of Rune Spells
Inscriptions:
Today, many people take written language for granted and use runes as an alphabet without really understanding the magical importance of doing so. When you write a word in runes, it empowers that word. The Norse would often finish inscriptions with the statement, "So-and-so wrote this", or "So-and-so made me". This was a way of magically connecting the writer or carver of the runes with what they had just written. For example, there was a bone plate found in Derbyshire which bears an inscription that reads, "God will preserve the honour of Hadda becuase he wrote this." Thus, the very act of writing something in runes is a spell in itself, bringing the statement into concrete reality.
Rune Scripts:
Another way of using the runes for magick is to write out rune rows, or rune scripts. These are a type of shorthand spell, made up of a sequence of two or more runes. For example, if you might incorporate laguz/water (relating to the subconsious and mysteries), perth/dice-cup (for divination and magick), ansuz/Odin (the God of the runes), and kenaz/torch (for inspiration).
Bindrunes:
A bidrune consists of two or more runes that have been superimposed or joined together someway. Occasionally runes like Fehu, or wunjo would be joined at the base of their "steams", forming a wheel. Otehr times, runes would be joined side by side or combined into a single rune. This latter method is the most popular today. Historically, bidrunes were used as "contractions" in an inscription, either to save space of to reduce the number of runes in the inscription to a more magickally auspicious total. Today they are commonly used in rune magick by themselves to create a magickal sigel that will encompass several runes at once. Additional runes often appear when creating a bidrune, and these can contribute to or detract from the purpose. However a rune is only truly present if you consciously include it by tracing its shape. If you can avoid including a conflicting rune by changing the configuration, then by all means do so, but you shouldn't worry about it too much. |