Books on Runes

Hemera

I´d love to hear about rune books that you have found helpful in some way?

I must have a dozen books on runes but I have found most of them a bit disappointing. So far I only know of one really good book, Helrunar by Jan Fries. That was the one book I have found that encourages us to read runes intuitively and that is not gender biased like most rune books seem to be.

I find that too many rune books are like bad LWBs (little white booklets) of tarot decks that just seem to offer ready chewed sentences. Most rune books insist on talking about the Vikings or the Nordic people and their Gods and Goddesses. (Even the gorgeous Nigel Jackson cards & book does this which is very disappointing.) Jan Fries takes the runes back to Nature and back to Ancient times and I think that is where I got the courage to start intuiting their meanings.
It does not always work very well but I´m afraid that is just my own lack of practice.

Come to think of it, my best rune book must be my own rune notebook :) I have found useful ideas from many books and I keep adding things to it.


A review I found of Helrunar (and no, I don´t get commission :p )
http://onepagansheart.northerngrove.com/book_reviews/helrunar.html
 

Aulruna

I second the recommendation of Helrunar! If I could have only one book on the subject, Helrunar would be it.

For those who read German, Germanische Magie (Germanic Magic) by Belgian author GardenStone also has a lot of information (some can be disputed, but that is the case with most works on Runes).

For practical divination, there are some useful things in Katie Gerrard's Odin's Gateways.

And of course, you can't bypass Edred Thorsson's work, especially Runecaster's Handbook: The Well Of Wyrd.
 

wildchilde

Thanks for starting the book/resource thread, Hemera! I much appreciate it. I have absolutely NO books on Runes (save the LWB and thin book that came with the Odin Rune Cards)...I just ran across this statement that you made to frac_ture and reiterated here about Fries' book...(of course, only after I stated in another thread about ethnic connections)...


Hemera said:
Jan Fries takes the runes back to Nature and back to Ancient times and I think that is where I got the courage to start intuiting their meanings.
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This makes complete sense to me. I commented in a separate thread that I was surprised that I connected so deeply with the Runes from the first because as far as I know I have no ethnic connection to Norse people. However, from the very first that connection seemed to be rooted in something much deeper within me and that is the understanding of Sacred Symbols, which of course I am quite familiar with through my Native American heritage. In fact, many of the Rune symbols echo our own symbols or, perhaps, as you (or more specifically Fries) point out, are the ancestors of my ancestors symbols! I think I will definitely have to check out Fries book.
 

Penthasilia

Milfoil said:
I don't own this but have it on good authority from two serious students of Runes that this book is worth having in your library.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/ALU-Advanced-Guide-Operative-Runology/dp/1578635268

His original book, Fulthark, is also supposed to be excellent but again, I don't have it. Knowing my friends, it will come from a Heathen/Norse standpoint and not a newage one.
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ALU is good- but not good as a stand alone. I think the best one by Flowers is the Nine Doors of Midgard.

As far as something different- I really like Gundarssons Teutonic Magic- after each rune meaning (to include a pronunciation guide for galdr) there is a sample meditation/journey to help get you working on more intuitive meanings.

I REALLY like Freya Answynn's CD of the runes for galdr. You can get an MP3 version off amazon and it is lovely to play, follow and use as you sing them yourself.

I have quite a few books on runes- for the elder futhark- i think the 9 doors and Teutonic magic are my favorite. For a more eclectic view, especially if you use the 33 rune sets, I like Raven Kaldera's books from the Pathwalker series or Galina Krasskova's (but you get less background work from it, more of a definition type, easy to grab and look up one).

He also has stuff on his websites:
http://www.northernshamanism.org/sh...about-pathwalking/pathwalking-with-runes.html

http://www.northernshamanism.org/shamanic-techniques/runes/the-futhorc-runes.html

http://www.northernshamanism.org/shamanic-techniques/runes/children-of-the-void.html
 

Milfoil

Hmmm, I am loath to recommend anything from Freya Answynn based on some of her very public and racist comments. Although something like Rune history and lore should be separate from such beliefs, I cannot help but wonder just how far anyone can separate their internal beliefs from their external manifestations and research. A quick internet search of her may be worth a look so as to take what she writes about with a wider understanding of background and praxis.
 

Hemera

Yes. And I also think she is gender biased. I do not remember why I felt this way and it is many years ago since I read the book but I did think her take on the "Feminine Powers" was a bit odd.(Somehow rather masculine.) Imo she didn´t strike me as a particularly balanced person. And I think if you want to be a teacher in esoteric things (or anything in fact) that is what you should to be.
 

frac_ture

"Northern Mysteries And Magick" - Freya Aswynn

Wow, Milfoil, I had no idea about Freya Aswynn being someone who expresses things of a racist nature. After reading your post, I did some surfing online, and it took no time at all to uncover things in line with what you said, which is pretty disturbing. I turned up an interview in which the guy speaking with her asks as his very first question what she thinks of New York, and she says something about what a pleasant surprise it had been for her to find a lot more white people in the city than she'd expected...:bugeyed:

But even before knowing this, I actually found that I don't love her book (the one ThunderWolf mentions above). She has a habit of just announcing things as if they're scientific facts, but without ever citing sources or explaining why these declarations might make sense. Here's an example from her write-up on Dagaz:

"Thus, like Jera, Dagaz is a rune of change. Jera, as mentioned previously, is a rune of gentle change, whereas Dagaz is the rune of cataclysmic change."

It is? How does "Day" equate to "cataclysmic change?" I'm not saying it can't, but it's kind of a leap to get from the one to the other, and I'd like some connecting of dots before I'll just swallow a sweeping statement like that. Aswynn does this all throughout her summaries of what she claims each Rune means. If she's to be held as this noted authority on this subject matter, I'd appreciate some expert explanation beyond the constantly implied, "I'm Freya Aswynn, and it's so because I'm telling you it's so."

And I guess that's a huge component of my dissatisfaction with her book: her "voice" and her tone as an author. I can't read more than a sentence or two of her book without getting the distinct impression that I'm not so much studying a text that will teach me about Runes, as I've been slipped a piece designed to tell me how awesome its author is. I'm not saying that an author's personal experience should never come into the discussion, as it can be helpful to a reader if explained properly, but I personally feel that Aswynn regularly throws in these claims about having achieved this or that (usually involving major psychic experiences or having accomplished various magical feats that sometimes seem to approach almost Gandalf-levels of ability), but she rarely gives any meaningful details as to the how or the why. From the write-up on Hagalaz:

"The Hagalaz rune can thus be used for extremely negative magic. I have used it in combination with Thurisaz and the result was disastrous for the person who received it. In this working the rune brought to this person's conscious mind all the suppressed garbage in his unconscious..."

How do we know this happened? How does she know what went on in someone else's mind? Why did she do this (it doesn't sound like an especially admirable thing to have done, unless she'd been under active attack by this person), and how did she go about such a thing? Without any of this information, we're left to just take it on faith that she managed something like this, and her book, supposedly designed to illuminate how to use the Runes to effect change in ourselves and out in the world, does nothing to advance us along the path toward being more competent practitioners ourselves...like I said, these little anecdotes seem to do nothing but play up her own status.

I know this all sounds pretty negative, and I don't mean to imply that no one should read her book. There's some good information in there...it's just presented in a way that doesn't work very well for me, personally. We're all different, though, so while I'm not a huge fan of this book, it might be the exact one that would get somebody else advancing along...

ETA: I'd love to hear any opposing thoughts from people who like this book, and why -- I'd be happy to keep my mind open to the possibility that I might be missing something important here...
 

Alta

This is a good discussion for me, because all I have had so far are the books by Thorssen and by Freya Answynn. Good to know about these other books.
 
Question--length of string or chain for pendulum Choosing Runes