Making Your Own Runes Another Take

I recently posted an article on making rune stones. I thought I would share how I made my Runes.

I have studied and rad runes for years. My first set of runes were stones that I gathered myself. I picked equal sized stones and washed them. I then painted the runes on them with red paint. I my have used red sharpie but I can’t remember right now. I know that the runes were red and they were on the rocks.

Rune stones are a 20th century phenomenon. The Runes as we know them today were introduced by Ralph Blum. His runes were on stones. He also introduced us to the 25th rune or the blank rune. He called this rune the Odin rune. This rune was not apart of the original elder futhark. Traditional the elder futhark has 24 runes in 3 series of aetts (pronounced Eights).

The runes were originally carved on sticks called staves. These staves were tossed and read by the rune and the placement they fell in. When working magic usually the runes were written in the blood of the caster.

The more I worked with rune stones the more I realized that I wanted a set of wooden runes. I am not a very crafty fellow so I wanted them to be traditional, functional and easy to make. I decided that staves would not work for me but wooden disks would. I went down to the local lumber store and bought myself a hardwood dowl rod around an inch wide. I cut myself 24 equal disks around 1/4 inch thick (I know people that use antler and that works well).

I took a red paint pen and painted the runes on each disk. Wood burning would work. I used red paint to represent blood since I refused to take enough of my own blood for 24 runes. I don’t like to take my blood. I figure loosing an arm is enough sacrifice to any God or Goddess and that I would keep my blood, thank you very much.

After finishing painting the runes I oiled them You can use something like mink oil or linseed oil. If you use linseed oil use boiled linseed because if it is not boiled it will take several weeks to dry.

That was it. I had a functional set of runes based in tradition that were easy to make. I then cleansed, blessed and attuned them in a way that worked for me.

I found my own path to reading runes that incorporates traditional ways along with a few new ways to make them work for me in a modern world.