Cipher runes, or cryptic runes, are the cryptographical replacement of the letters of the runic alphabet.
Cipher runes, or cryptic runes, are the cryptographical replacement of the letters of the runic alphabet.
The knowledge of cipher runes was best preserved in Iceland, and during the 17th–18th centuries, Icelandic scholars produced several treatises on the subject. The most notable of these is the manuscript Runologia by Jón Ólafsson (1705–1779), which he wrote in Copenhagen (1732–1752). It thoroughly treats numerous cipher runes and runic ciphers, and it is now preserved in the Arnamagnæan Institute in Copenhagen. [1]
Jón Ólafsson's treatise presents the Younger Futhark in the Viking Age order, which means that the m-rune precedes the l-rune. This small detail was of paramount importance for the interpretation of Viking Age cipher runes because in the 13th century the two runes had changed places through the influence of the Latin alphabet where l precedes m. Since the medieval runic calendar used the post-13th-century order, the early runologists of the 17th–18th centuries believed that the l-m order was the original one, and the order of the runes is of vital importance for the interpretation of cipher runes. [1]
In the runic alphabet, the runes have their special order and are divided into groups. In the Younger Futhark, which has 16 letters, they are divided into three groups. The Icelandic tradition calls the first group (f, u, þ, ã, r and k) "Freyr's ætt", the second group (h, n, i, a and s) "Hagal's ætt" and the third group (t, b, m, l and ʀ) "Tyr's ætt". In order to make the inscription even harder to decipher, Freyr's ætt and Tyr's ætt change places so that group one is group three and vice versa. However, in several cases the ætts are counted in their correct order, and not backwards. [2] [ better source needed ] There are numerous forms of cipher runes, but they are all based on the principle of giving the number of the ætt and the number of the rune within the ætt. [3]
The tent runes are based on strokes added to the four arms of an X shape: Each X represents two runes and is read clockwise, starting with the top left arm. The strokes on the first arm representing the ætt (row of eight runes: (1) fuþarkgw, (2) hnijæpzs, (3) tbemlŋod), the strokes on the second arm denote the order within that ætt.
The branch runes are similar, the strokes being attached to a vertical stem and branching upwards. Strokes on the left indicate the ætt, and strokes on the right the order within the ætt.
There are variants of these two schemes, such as inverting the numbers (counting backwards the ætts, and the runes within the ætts).Tree runes and hook runes are like branch runes, with the strokes pointing downward diagonally and curving downward, respectively. These may be mixed: in the phrase ek vitki at left, ek is written in straightforward branch runes, but vitki is written with the ætts as hooks and the order as branches.
There are several runestones using such devices of obscuring the inscription, especially found in Orkney.
A comparable system of letter modification is that of the Ogham "scales" recorded in the Ogam Tract.
The orthography of the Old Norse language was diverse, being written in both Runic and Latin alphabets, with many spelling conventions, variant letterforms, and unique letters and signs. In modern times, scholars established a standardized spelling for the language. When Old Norse names are used in texts in other languages, modifications to this spelling are often made. In particular, the names of Old Norse mythological figures often have several different spellings.
Ogham is an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to write the early Irish language, and later the Old Irish language. There are roughly 400 surviving orthodox inscriptions on stone monuments throughout Ireland and western Britain, the bulk of which are in southern Munster. The largest number outside Ireland are in Pembrokeshire, Wales.
A rune is a letter in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write Germanic languages before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised purposes thereafter. In addition to representing a sound value, runes can be used to represent the concepts after which they are named (ideographs). Scholars refer to instances of the latter as Begriffsrunen. The Scandinavian variants are also known as futhark or fuþark ; the Anglo-Saxon variant is futhorc or fuþorc.
The Younger Futhark, also called Scandinavian runes, is a runic alphabet and a reduced form of the Elder Futhark, with only 16 characters, in use from about the 9th century, after a "transitional period" during the 7th and 8th centuries. The reduction, somewhat paradoxically, happened at the same time as phonetic changes that led to a greater number of different phonemes in the spoken language, when Proto-Norse evolved into Old Norse. Also, the writing custom avoided carving the same rune consecutively for the same sound, so the spoken distinction between long and short vowels was lost in writing. Thus, the language included distinct sounds and minimal pairs that were written the same.
The Elder Futhark, also known as the Older Futhark, Old Futhark, or Germanic Futhark, is the oldest form of the runic alphabets. It was a writing system used by Germanic peoples for Northwest Germanic dialects in the Migration Period. Inscriptions are found on artifacts including jewelry, amulets, plateware, tools, and weapons, as well as runestones in Scandinavia, from the 2nd to the 10th centuries.
Runology is the study of the Runic alphabets, Runic inscriptions and their history. Runology forms a specialized branch of Germanic linguistics.
Anglo-Saxon runes are runes used by the early Anglo-Saxons as an alphabet in their writing system. Today, the characters are known collectively as the futhorc from the sound values of the first six runes. The futhorc was a development from the 24-character Elder Futhark. Since futhorc also recorded Old Frisian along with Old English, the term Anglo-Frisian runes is also used. They were likely to have been used from the 5th century onward.
The Scandinavian Runic-text Data Base is a project involving the creation and maintenance of a database of transliterated runic inscriptions. The project's goal is to comprehensively catalog runestones in a machine-readable way for future research. The database is freely available via the Internet with a client program, called Rundata, for Microsoft Windows. For other operating systems, text files are provided or a web browser can be used to interact with the web application Runor.
A runic inscription is an inscription made in one of the various runic alphabets. They generally contained practical information or memorials instead of magic or mythic stories. The body of runic inscriptions falls into the three categories of Elder Futhark, Anglo-Frisian Futhorc and Younger Futhark.
A bind rune or bindrune is a Migration Period Germanic ligature of two or more runes. They are extremely rare in Viking Age inscriptions, but are common in earlier (Proto-Norse) and later (medieval) inscriptions.
A number of runestones have been found in Oklahoma. All of them are of modern origin dating to the 19th century "Viking revival" or were produced by 19th-century Scandinavian settlers.
There is some evidence that, in addition to being a writing system, runes historically served purposes of magic. This is the case from the earliest epigraphic evidence of the Roman to the Germanic Iron Age, with non-linguistic inscriptions and the alu word. An erilaz appears to have been a person versed in runes, including their magic applications.
Staveless runes were the climax of the simplification process in the evolution of runic alphabets that had started when the Elder Futhark was superseded by the Younger Futhark. In order to create the staveless runes, vertical marks were dropped from individual letters. The name "staveless" is not entirely accurate, since the i rune consists of a whole stave and the f, þ, k and the s runes consist of shortened main staves.
The Runa ABC of Johannes Bureus was the first Swedish alphabet book and its purpose was to teach the runic alphabet in 17th century Sweden.
The medieval runes, or the futhork, was a Scandinavian runic alphabet that evolved from the Younger Futhark after the introduction of stung runes at the end of the Viking Age. These stung runes were regular runes with the addition of either a dot diacritic or bar diacritic to indicate that the rune stood for one of its secondary sounds. The medieval futhork was fully formed in the early 13th century. Due to the expansion of its character inventory, it was essentially possible to have each character in an inscription correspond to only one phoneme, something which was virtually impossible in Younger Futhark with its small inventory of 16 runes.
The Dalecarlian runes, or dalrunes, was a late version of the runic script that was in use in the Swedish province of Dalarna until the 20th century. The province has consequently been called the "last stronghold of the Germanic script".
Runic is a Unicode block containing runic characters. It was introduced in Unicode 3.0 (1999), with eight additional characters introduced in Unicode 7.0 (2014). The original encoding of runes in UCS was based on the recommendations of the "ISO Runes Project" submitted in 1997.
Runic alphabets have seen numerous uses since the 18th-century Viking revival, in Scandinavian Romantic nationalism (Gothicismus) and Germanic occultism in the 19th century, and in the context of the Fantasy genre and of Germanic Neopaganism in the 20th century.