How Odin got the runes
The tradition’s own answer is a sacrifice: Odin hanged nine nights on the windswept tree, wounded with a spear, given to Odin, himself to himself. No bread was handed him, no horn. He looked down, took up the runes, screaming he took them, and fell back.
Where this comes from
attested use Hávamál, stanzas 138–139 · Codex Regius, 13th century
The Codex Regius of the thirteenth century carries it, the same manuscript that holds Sigrdrífumál. Some editions number the stanzas 139 and 140. The verses say the nine nights, the spear, the sacrifice of self to self, and the price: no bread, no horn, a scream, a fall. Within its own tradition this is where the runes come from: knowledge not handed over but paid for.
The parallel people notice
The likeness to the crucifixion is real and has long been discussed seriously: a god sacrificed to himself, hanging on a tree, wounded with a spear. What is not settled is the direction. Sophus Bugge argued borrowing in the nineteenth century, others answer that neighbouring traditions share motifs, and the question stands open. This site does not pick a side, because the scholarship has not picked one.
What the poems say
None of the four rune poems tells this story. They describe the letters, one by one, and the myth of their winning lives in the Edda instead. Both are printed where they belong: the poems whole on the witness pages, the myth here, named as myth.
Do runes actually work? An honest answer Are runes witchcraft? An answer with dates How do you activate runes?