Sometimes, I wonder why writing in Runes ever went out of style. From the time I first learned about it, I thought it was a fascinating concept: a writing system in which each character represents a sound or letter, a word or name, and a larger abstract concept. As versatile as the Roman alphabet is, it never had the deeper meanings of the Runic alphabet or the ability to double as a system of divination.
I first learned about Runes over 20 years ago. I wanted to be able to write in my journal without my family reading it, so I taught myself a writing system that no one uses any more. I think this choice was also inspired a bit by the pop culture of the early 2000s– the release of the film version of The Fellowship of the Ring in 2001 reignited a cultural interest in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Harry Potter series mentioned them. The fact that I wanted to have more secret thoughts written down as a teenager also sort of fits in with the idea of the monomyth; that desire is part of the process of differentiation and growing into your own person.
Runes were also a bit closer to the Roman alphabet than most dead writing systems, which made them a natural choice to use.
Runes are a surprisingly easy system to adapt to if you’re motivated enough! The letters in the Elder Futhark correspond fairly closely to Roman letters, with a few exceptions. Here’s how I generally adapt it:
Obviously, there’s a few issues with this:
1) There’s no difference between capitals and lower-case letters
2) “C” and “K” are the same character. Same goes for “J” and “Y” and “V” and “W.” Any attempt at actually reading what I write with this system depends a lot on contextual clues for what all the words are.
3) “Q” and “X” have no real equivalent so there’s just a couple of Runes thrown together like “whatever, that’s close enough.”
There’s a few odd things that resulted from relying on Runes to have more privacy when I was growing up:
1) After cursive, Runes are the most intuitive handwriting system for me to use. I simply never had any situations in which I needed to use block printing for long passages of writing, since cursive is faster and causes less hand cramping. Anything meant to be read gets written in cursive, while “inside thoughts” that are supposed to be released from my mind without being shared with other people get written in Runes.
2) I can fluently write in this style, but I can’t fluently read it! In situations where I’ve come across other people using Runes, like on the mead display at the Renaissance Faire, it takes me a second to mentally translate it. Part of this is because not everyone who can write in Runes does it the same way I do it, and part of it is that my intention with writing in that style was for it to be difficult to read. There’s also a lack of practice. Since I’m the only person I know using this dead writing system for long passages of writing, there’s simply no situations where I’ve read things other people have written in the same style. However, I can recognize the word meanings and larger conceptual meanings immediately if I see a single Rune on a piece of jewelry or something.
3) It’s not impossible to read, but because it takes a while to mentally “translate” it back into Roman letters, sheer laziness can prevent everyone from reading long form writing in this style — including me when I come across my old writings!
The habit of writing this way didn’t stop after high school, either. When I’m journaling about experiences or thoughts that are difficult to process, I still use it. I do this even though I only share a space with my cat now and there’s no need to use Runes for the sake of privacy. I also sometimes do it as a stylistic choice.
The most interesting thing about having a writing system that isn’t intended to be read is that it shows how much people need to simply get things out on paper sometimes. It’s like the idea of writing something and then burning it just to experience catharsis, but it’s almost like it’s already being burned as it’s being written because the entire thing is so illegible.
I recently thought about this because I came across a journal from 2012 with several pages written in Runes and thought, “this is really cool because it looks like a wizard wrote it,” and, “the crazy thing is that this writing system is supposed to have some kind of magic attached to it,” and then I wondered, “why did Runes ever go out of use? No other writing system has characters with a triple meaning like that!”
Somehow, during all the years I was using this system, I had never thought about that question. I knew it was used in the Late Antiquity and Early Medieval periods, and then it wasn’t used any more. That’s it.
I went down the internet rabbit hole a bit about this, and it turns out that part of why Runes stopped being used was because they were never used for long writing passages to begin with, only for short inscriptions intended to imbue objects with power. The times I’ve used them in a decorative way is the closest to their original intention. The Roman alphabet, on the other hand, was established as a writing system intended for long passages of text (anyone who has ever taken a Latin class can picture what I’m talking about). In addition, by the time the people who were using the Roman Alphabet encountered the people who used the Runic Futhark, they greatly outnumbered them and had more sophisticated technology. Convenience, cultural dominance, and the greater adaptability of the Roman alphabet all led to Runes becoming obsolete.
However, there is a font on Dafont.com that combines the style of Runes with the legibility of Roman letters: https://www.dafont.com/runelike.font
Note: The sample text I wrote by hand in Runes is a classic quote from The Fellowship of the Ring:
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”