Three runic alphabets
Runic alphabets are called futharks after their first six runes: f, u, th, a, r, k. The Elder Futhark, with 24 runes, was used from about the 2nd to the 8th century. In Viking Age Scandinavia it was cut down to the 16-rune Younger Futhark, so one rune had to stand for several sounds: Týr covers both t and d, and Kaun both k and g.
In England the runes went the other way and grew into the Anglo-Saxon futhorc, which added runes for the sounds of Old English. The Old English Rune Poem names and describes 29 of them, the ones on the second chart; to write in them, use the Anglo-Saxon runes translator.
Where the rune names come from
Nobody wrote down the Elder Futhark names, so names like Fehu and Ansuz are scholars’ reconstructions. The Younger Futhark names come from the medieval Norwegian and Icelandic rune poems, and the futhorc names from the Old English Rune Poem. Most of the magical and divination meanings sold today are modern inventions.
Before a rune tattoo
Check every rune against the chart, and remember that the Younger Futhark loses some distinctions between letters. The rune translator spells English letter by letter, so the words themselves stay English.
Sources & method
Every rune’s code point and Unicode name was checked against the Unicode Character Database 16.0, for example ᚠ is U+16A0 RUNIC LETTER FEHU FEOH FE F, so these are the standard Unicode characters for all three alphabets. Unicode identifies the characters; the sounds are the usual values, and scholars disagree about a few of them.
Checked against
- Unicode Runic code chart (U+16A0–U+16FF)names and code points of every rune on these charts