Witches’ runes: a different language of signs
The sun. The moon. A wave. Rings. A scythe. A crossroads.
They are called Witches’ Runes. They lie in pouches, they are drawn at random, cast on a cloth and read much the way the familiar rune sets are. But there is a surprise: these are not the same kind of runes at all. The Elder Futhark was an alphabet. Its signs could write a name or a whole sentence. Witches’ runes write nothing. Every sign here is an image straight away.
The sun is the sun.
The moon is the moon.
A wave is the movement of water.
Not letters that became symbols. Symbols from the very beginning.
Where did they come from?
Here the history is much younger, and a little hazy. The earliest book we can name with confidence is A Witch’s Runes by Susan Sheppard, published in 1998. It describes a set of 13 stones, each drawn with its own symbol. There is an earlier story too. Dana Corby wrote that a system of thirteen signs was published in the magazine Crystal Well back in the mid-1970s.
We do not have that old issue in front of us, so we treat the date carefully. But the main thing is clear: this is a modern practice, not a lost runic alphabet of ancient Europe.
Why are they called runes, then?
Because today the word «rune» often means more than a letter of an old script. It is also what people call a small sign drawn or cast for a reading. It is in that sense that witches’ runes got their name. Different sets exist. Some have 13.
Some have 8. Other variations turn up as well. They have no single ancient runic row that archaeologists can recover from inscriptions. This is a living system that changed along with the people who use it.
How do they differ from the Elder Futhark?
The simplest way to put it: the Elder Futhark began as writing. Witches’ runes began as a language of images. In the Elder Futhark, Fehu carries the sound f. And then the rune poems tell of its name, of wealth and everything that image drags behind it.
Witches’ runes have no second layer like that. If the Sun is in front of you, you work with the image of the sun straight away. So the system is very approachable. You do not have to learn an old alphabet, languages or the history of every sign first. You see a symbol — and begin with what it raises in you.
Which runes are «more real»?
Neither.
They are simply two different things. If you want to explore the old Germanic script, its inscriptions and the images that outlived the centuries — that is the Elder Futhark. If you like a modern oracle with simple, immediately readable symbols — witches’ runes have a beauty of their own. They do not need a thousand-year history to matter today.
A new tradition can become a tradition too.
And what do the rune poems say?
Nothing about witches’ runes. The poems speak of the historical runic rows and the images of the runes themselves. Fehu. Uruz. Thurisaz. Ansuz. Those twenty-four signs of the Elder Futhark are the ones gathered on this site.
Runes or tarot: what is the difference? Are runes witchcraft?