The Futhark

The Futhark - and how to read the runes

This was the ABC for the Vikings. It got its name from the first six letters. There was an earlier futhark also, which consisted of 24 letters, but let´s focus on the 16 letter one - most of the rune stones were carved with that one.

The letter for u also include v and o, k is also g, and the i-letter is also used for e....

A lot of the stones follow this simple pattern :

somebody raised this stone after somebody else, his brother / father / son, a very good man.

So, what you have to do, is to look for some of the keywords and try to decode the message. You lean your head to the left, and read from left to right. To make it easier to read, I´ve straightened up the text on these examples.

: risthi : stin : thinsi ( more often thisi ) : iftir : - not so hard, is it ?

: bruthur : - brother, of course

: fathur : sin : - his father
( sin = sein in German and son in French )

: sun : sin : - his son

: hartha : guthan : thikn ( = thegn ) :
very good valiant man

Biurn : - Björn ( the name )

By learning these few combinations, the stones gets more alive - you can actually read something that was written about 1000 years ago - in a foreign language ! Then, of course, you can just look at the pictures of snakes, beasts, crosses and whatever they may show....