Making a Set of Runes

I am thinking about making myself a set of runes. Could you tell me what I need to do, what materials I need, how long it will take, etc?

I have a week coming up soon in which I will not be disturbed at all. I have a big pile of wood with which I can make them.

So, any advice will be greatly recieved.

Liam

pebbles

Hi There,
I made my first Rune set from pebbles I found on the beach, you know the small smooth ones.
I painted on the symbols with Tippex and then varnished them. I found the Tippex worked well and never chipped. Rune Stones you make yourself are special and have a powerful energy.
You can also make them from wood, by cutting circles and burning on the symbols, a bit fiddly for me I'm afraid.
I have to say the pebbles are nice as they all have different hues of colour and an ancient energy all of their own.
Good luck with your Runes
Doreen.

I'm really new to this so forgive me if I get it a little wrong but from what I have researched online, the following seems to have a bearing:

1)The type of wood you choose (yew, ash, oak etc) has an influence
2)Other traditional materials such as bone, horn or stone each have their own influence
3)Some take 24 days to make the 24 individual runes starting at a specific time in the lunar month
4)Several varied rituals surrounding the collection and making of runes
5)Use of red ochre or actual blood to colour and energise the runes

How influential the above are is not known to me as I have yet to make my own set or use runes but certainly if you search the net about rune making there is a lot of information out there.

Here is a search for some earlier threads discussing the subject

http://www.tarotforum.net/search.php?searchid=712143

Painted stones work just wonderful.

I've never ever blooded a set of Runes.

Never used Red Ochre...

used fingernail polish on a set that worked just fine...

I really think - you can make your own rules.

I made my first runeset from small pebbles I collected on the beach by my house. They were lovely, and generally uniform in size, but I found after a certain amount of time that I could tell which runes I was pulling from the bag by their shape.

I made my second set of runes from 1 inch oak pieces I bought at a craft store (each identical in shape). I bought a woodburning tool (it was pretty inexpensive) to carve the runes into each piece of wood. I did one rune per night, rubbing each one with essential oil that I felt represented the meaning/energy of the rune. I passed each one through some sandlewood incense smoke, as well.

It's a remarkable, magical runeset!

LTG2201 said:

I am thinking about making myself a set of runes. Could you tell me what I need to do, what materials I need, how long it will take, etc?

Click to expand...

Hi Liam,
You can use any material you want. If you have some wood available, that will be fine. You can cut a branch that is about 1 inch (2.5 cm) in diameter into disks. Or, if your wood is already in boards, you can cut squares or rectangles of wood. Make them about 1/4 an inch thick (half a cm) or whatever seems right to you. As you can probably guess by now, there really aren't any rules to this. As for time, it will take as much time as you want to give it. You can probably get the blanks all cut and prepared (sanded smooth if you want or just enough smoothing to keep them from getting snagged on stuff) in an afternoon. Actually marking the Runes can be done in a variety of ways. You can carve them, burn them, or just paint/draw them on the blanks. Again, it's up to you and what you want to end up with. I used a combination of carving and wood burning. The time involved for marking the Runes varies greatly from person to person. Some people will do one Rune a day. They study the Runes, learn it's meaning, and mark it. They might carry this Rune with them for all of that day and meditate on it's meaning. This is a nice way to learning Runes if you want to do it that way. Otherwise, if you want to make all of the Runes at once, it will probably take a couple of hours to carve all 24 Runes. Then, if you want, you can put a finish on your Runes. This will take some drying time and you will need to finish both sides of your Runes. So, add up all those steps and you can finish your Runes in a few days but you won't have to be working on them all day long. Learning the Runes? That can take a lifetime!!!

Hi, I actually made my own set of runes 2day. i use a black marker and then with nail varnish coated my pebbles. Tip-ex wud have been better as it wudnt run, but I have to questions.
1. The book I got my symbols from is a general mish mash of psychic and divination/fortunetelling stuff (I originally bought the book for my tarot). Is there any place I can find definative symols for my runes, so I know im using the right ones.
2. How long does it take the nail varnish smell to go away?

Cheers

Muser257, there is a particular symbol or letter for each rune, an alphabet, as it were and each letter has a meaning all its own. Depending on which website or book you use to study, there are differences in the alphabet. I find that the Elder Furthark alphabet works best for me.

Just like Tarot, the more you find out about runes, the more fascinating they become.

Wouldn't know about the varnish smell, mine didn't stink that bad or then again, I'm an artist and I probably can't smell it by now.

Here is a link for the study pages that go along with the Elder Futhark

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=15597

This site shows a nice representation of the Elder symbols

http://sphinx.planetwaves.net/aettir.htm

Muser257 said:

Hi, I actually made my own set of runes 2day. i use a black marker and then with nail varnish coated my pebbles. Tip-ex wud have been better as it wudnt run, but I have to questions.
1. The book I got my symbols from is a general mish mash of psychic and divination/fortunetelling stuff (I originally bought the book for my tarot). Is there any place I can find definative symols for my runes, so I know im using the right ones.
2. How long does it take the nail varnish smell to go away?
Cheers

Click to expand...

Hi Muser257,
I think I know the kind of book you are referring to. I have a couple of general books like that. It probably has some good beginning info. You can get a lot of info from this web site:
http://www.sunnyway.com/runes/
Also, any book by Edred Thorsson will be a great source of information, particularly 'Runecaster's Handbook: The Well of Wyrd' or 'Futhark: A Handbook of Rune Magic'. Enjoy.