This course is free and always will be. No account, no email needed. Your progress stays in your own browser. If you have seen runes on a necklace, in a film or in a shop and wondered what they really are, or you have a rune set in a drawer and no idea where to start, you are exactly who I wrote it for.

Runes for Beginners: A Novice’s Path starts where runes start: as an alphabet. The first five lessons follow the runes from the oldest inscriptions through the Viking Age to medieval Norway, look honestly at what the sources say about magic and divination, and face how runes were misused in the twentieth century. The next three lessons teach all 24 runes of the Elder Futhark, eight at a time. The last two show you how to make a set, cast it, read simple spreads and build a small daily practice. Each lesson ends with a small exercise and a quick quiz.

What you will learn

What runes are, and how the Elder Futhark, Younger Futhark and Anglo-Saxon futhorc differ.
The oldest inscriptions, from Vimose and Kylver to the Gallehus horn.
Rune stones, Maeshowe, the Bryggen sticks and runic calendars.
What Tacitus, the Eddas and Egil’s saga say about rune magic, and what they do not.
How runes were misused, and the ground rules I suggest for using them with care.
The name, sound, rune poem and keywords of all 24 Elder Futhark runes.
How to make a set, cast it, read three spreads and design a bindrune.

How it works

Open a lesson, read it, try the exercise and press “Mark as done”. Your progress is saved privately in your browser, so nothing is sent to me. When every lesson is done, you can open your certificate of completion.

I label what I teach in three layers, as everywhere on this site: Historical for what the inscriptions and early texts show, Later tradition for what antiquarians and occultists added later, and Modern for practice today. Modern does not mean fake. It means honest about its age.

The lessons

How each lesson works

Every lesson opens with why the topic matters. Then comes the teaching itself in plain prose, a worked example that shows the idea in action, one small exercise for your notebook and a short recap, with the sources I used listed at the end. A three-question quiz at the bottom checks the main idea, and nobody sees your answers. The last part of each lesson links to the next one. If a lesson needs a second evening, give it one.

Who this course is for

Complete beginners, readers who want to check what they have seen online, and anyone who loves history and old alphabets. It does not ask you to believe that runes predict the future. It asks you to learn them properly first, then to try them with curiosity and write down what actually happens.

What you need

A notebook and a pen. For lessons 9 and 10, a simple set of 24 runes. You can make one from squares of card, flat pebbles and a marker, or small wooden discs. A cloth to cast on is nice but not required.

Start now

Begin with What runes are. It takes about twelve minutes.

Go deeper

The runes hub has a page for every rune, the rune history page goes further into the inscriptions, and the rune poems page shows where the meanings come from. If you would like to try other methods of divination, take Divination for Beginners.

Sources

Michael P. Barnes, Runes: A Handbook (Boydell Press, 2012).
R. I. Page, Runes (British Museum Press, 1987).
R. I. Page, An Introduction to English Runes, second edition (Boydell Press, 1999).
Erik Moltke, Runes and their Origin: Denmark and Elsewhere (National Museum of Denmark, 1985).
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism (Aquarian Press, 1985).

0% done · 10 of 10 lessons ready

Module 1

History, sources and ground rules

5 lessons What runes were, the inscriptions, what the sources really say and how to avoid misuse.

Module 2

The Elder Futhark, aett by aett

3 lessons All 24 runes in their three families of eight.

Module 3

Using the runes

2 lessons Making your own set, casting, simple spreads, bindrunes and a daily practice.

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