What runes did the Vikings use?
If you are picturing the 24 runes of the Elder Futhark, there is a small surprise: the Vikings mostly did not use them. By the start of the Viking age the old row of 24 signs had already changed. By roughly the year 800 the Younger Futhark had settled in Scandinavia — only 16 runes. Thousands of Viking-age inscriptions are cut in those. So the link between Vikings and runes is entirely real. Their runes simply looked a little different from the ones you most often see today on amulets, tattoos and reading sets.
24 runes became 16
The Elder Futhark appeared long before the Viking age. It had 24 signs and was used from roughly the second to the eighth century. Then something happened that looks strange at first glance. The language was changing and growing more complex — and the runes were growing fewer. By the start of the Viking age sixteen were left.
So the Younger Futhark came about. A smaller number of signs now had to carry more sounds, so one rune could be read differently depending on the word. This is the row we see on the famous Scandinavian rune stones.
The 24 runes are older.
The 16 runes are already the Viking world.
And the Vikings really did write a lot in runes
Not only heroes’ names and solemn inscriptions on stones. Runes were part of everyday life. In Bergen archaeologists found hundreds of runic inscriptions on small pieces of wood and bone. Among them are business messages, love notes, verses, charms and entirely ordinary phrases. Someone wrote about debts. Someone left a name. And someone wrote roughly what people write to each other today:
«my darling, kiss me».
Runes were cut on weapons, objects, wood and stone. So for a Viking a rune could be both a sign with a special meaning and simply a letter in a message.
And magic?
It was there beside them too. In the old texts runes appear in the context of protection, healing, victory and a safe journey. Sigrdrífumál, for instance, advises cutting runes to protect a ship. But the sources do not show the scene familiar today: a person takes out a pouch of 24 runes, draws three and reads past, present and future. The Vikings used runes constantly.
Just not the way modern rune-reading sets do.
Why is the Elder Futhark everywhere, then?
Because today it is its 24 runes that have become the most popular for modern runic practice. And this site is devoted to the Elder Futhark. It is older than the Viking age, but its runes have a long history, and the rune poems and the later tradition let us partly recover their names and images. So if you want to write something the way a Viking might have written it, better to look at the Younger Futhark. And if you want to explore the 24 runes of the Elder Futhark — you are already in the right place.