I painted runes.
Or, a researcher of white supremacy and a witch walk into a bar.
SO, this was supposed to be a fun little reflective post about rune-casting as part of a larger series on things I’m trying for the first time (see, e.g., “I took a public speaking class”). But it turns out there isn’t a lot of accessible writing, at least not in English, that lays out how witches and other practitioners use runes vs. how white supremacists use them. Ergo, this is both longer and more quasi-academic than I’d intended. Hopefully it’s useful to anyone wishing to not accidentally dogwhistle to white supremacists and/or be more nuanced in their analyses of white supremacist symbols than “uh oh runes.”
A selection of statements about me:
My mother’s side of the family has proudly touted their Swedish heritage for as long as I can remember. A few years ago, however, we found out that our supposed Swedish background is more culturally Norwegian due to historical border changes. My grandmother was capital-D Distraught. Meanwhile, having never connected with Swedish culture but nurturing a longstanding and somewhat inexplicable love for Norse mythology, I was thrilled.
I was also cautious. I’d spent the past nine years studying white supremacy and white supremacist violence for my job, and so I was aware of how old Norse cultural concepts, from religious figures to runes, had been appropriated by white far right groups. I’d purposely avoided having much to do with runes to avoid accidentally treading into white supremacist territory. While the Viking cultures associated with runes[1] were not white supremacist in any sense that we would understand today, glosses and connections are the currency of the internet. Best to stay out of the minefield.
A selection of circumstances converging:
I have read tarot for about five years and done so for other people for the past two-ish. I love tarot as a storytelling device, where the stories are about you and are ones you already know, but perhaps you’ve forgotten how they go or resisted hearing what they have to tell you. In witchcraft, modern paganism, and spiritualism, tarot is one of many tools of divination, where “divination” means “a way of gaining insight.” So, too, is rune-casting. I had watched a few YouTube videos involving runes but never tried to learn the practice in earnest. Still, given my proclivities, it was only a matter of time.
I have a coven sister who ran a workshop for us back in February where we made our own set of runes for divination. Runes are usually carved into wood or painted on stone. The materials used carry significance and thus, in my mind, need to be meaningful. I watched the workshop video but didn’t participate right away; it took me years to find a tarot deck that resonated with me, and I wanted the same experience with runes.
In May, I found myself up a rocky hillside in the mist in Snowdonia National Park in Wales, high above Lake (Llyn) Idwal. The moraine was slate gray, dotted through with silica and orange sandstone, rugged and volatile and ancient. This is the kind of land that thrums; each ascent is an inhale. Climbing up an outcrop, my body paused of its own volition in a crouch. The earth seemed to say, here. I pulled 25 stones from a field of millions eroded over eons of glacier flows and volcanic eruptions, like pulling tarot cards from a collection representing every component of life’s journey. I had planned this hike for two years, and this felt like a serendipitous way to mark my last excursion before leaving the UK.
A fact: to confront a fear, arm yourself with information.
This is a post for researchers of the white far right and practitioners of magic alike.[2] In researching both the art of rune-casting and the appropriation of runes, I was struck by how little communication there seemed to be between those who use runes for insight and guidance and those who view them as historical artifacts irredeemably co-opted by white supremacists. My aim in writing this is to provide a more holistic picture from the perspective of two communities of which I am a member. Presenting all runes as Nazi symbols is reductive, inaccurate, and frankly offensive to those using runes as part of an anti-racist spiritual practice. Likewise, displaying runes willy-nilly as talismans can invite danger, and good intentions do not counteract negative impacts.
For researchers of white supremacy, I’d summarize like so:
The term “runes” encompasses a wide range of alphabets spanning contemporary countries and historic cultures. Applying a single adjective to all of them (“bad,” “co-opted”) ignores an enormous amount of nuance and skates over the fact that only a small selection are used consistently as white supremacist symbols.
Not everyone who employs runes nowadays does so through a religious or cultural lens. The range of practitioners using runes is vast and, like runes themselves, quite heterogeneous.
For witches and other practitioners, the basics are thus:
There is nothing inherently racist about runes. Generally speaking, you should not be wary of rune-casting or using runes in your own work.
But, be careful of displaying a small handful of runes in isolation without understanding how they may signal affinity to white supremacist groups.
There are plenty of inclusive, antiracist Heathen organizations if you would like to learn more.
This post is not a comprehensive overview of runes. Given how many runic alphabets there are, this would be impossible to do in a newsletter, my relatively nascent understanding of (some) runes notwithstanding. I am interestingly positioned, but I am not an expert! If you are an expert and I’ve gotten something wrong, wholly or partially, or even if you just have a different perspective, please share it in the comments. White supremacy is obviously not a “perspective,” and any proponents thereof will be swiftly chucked down a well. (We’re also not fans of witch-hate in this space, FYI.)
For researchers
What you probably know: white supremacists often display runes as symbols of their movements. Thus the use of a rune in isolation, probabilistically, may signal some level of adherence to white supremacist ideologies.
Alongside a resurgence of interest in the occult in the mid- to late 19th century[3] came a robust and often racist discourse around German identity following unification in 1871. Dovetailing furthermore with interest in Darwinian ideas about evolution and heritage (which were, more often than not, misinterpreted by nationalists), runes came to be understood in Germany as the “authentic” alphabet of the German people, linking contemporary Germany with Germanic tribes of old. It’s unsurprising, given Nazi interest in the occult and Being Generally Awful, that runes would feature prominently in Third Reich iconography. The most notorious example is the “S” rune, two of which form the SS logo. You may have also seen the “t” rune (Tyr) and the “o” rune (Odal or Othala) used frequently at far-right rallies throughout Europe and North America.
What I’d like to emphasize: there are multiple runic alphabets, and white supremacists don’t pull from them with any sort of consistency. Take the “S” rune. This comes from Younger Futhark, a runic alphabet used primarily in Scandinavia from the 8th century onward. Each rune has a name, most of which translate as material things (like “ice” or “sea”). The “s” rune is Sól, or “sun.” Sól is also the sun goddess in old German and Norse folk religions. Aside from its graphemic purpose of making the “s” sound, it therefore also carries material and spiritual associations.
White supremacists also use Tyr, the “t” rune, and Yr, the “ae” rune, from Younger Futhark. But the alphabet as a whole has 16 characters, and most of the others don’t feature in white supremacist iconography at all, while a handful do so more inconsistently. In actuality, one of the most popular runes among white supremacists is actually the “o” rune, which is from Elder Futhark and has no corresponding character in Younger Futhark. Elder Futhark is widely considered the oldest runic alphabet and was used throughout what is now Germany and southern Scandinavia starting in the 2nd century. Why pull this one character from Elder Futhark and the others from Younger? Perhaps white supremacists simply liked the meaning and didn’t care much for consistency. Logic doesn’t play a large role in this either: Elder Futhark was developed by Germanic tribes, whereas Younger Futhark is a specifically Scandinavian writing system. Of course there aren’t clearly delineated boundaries between any of these ethnic groups, and they don’t line up neatly with 21st-century borders, but if we’re going for völkisch German purity here, it would seem to make more sense to draw from Elder Futhark, especially in the case of the Nazis. But that’s not what’s happened.[4]
Let’s add a layer. One of the most popular runes in use by white supremacists today is the “t” rune, Tyr, from Younger Futhark. But the exact same character also exists in Elder Futhark, where it is called “Tiwaz.” Tiwaz and Tyr are both names for the same deity: a god of war, sometimes considered to be the son of Odin. Spiritually and graphemically, the meaning of the rune doesn’t really change from Elder to Younger Futhark. So why go with the name from Younger Futhark? Perhaps because it’s shorter. But, again, no deep symbolic logic going on here.
There are also many runic systems besides Elder and Younger Futhark. Staves are runes that function solely as sigils (magically-charged symbols); these come from Iceland. You may have seen the Helm of Awe in modern occult practices, where it is used as a symbol of protection. Anglo-Saxon tribes in Britain also developed a runic writing system called futhorc, and some practitioners in the British Isles still use these runes. Some scholars of the white far right in Europe argue that runes have been wholly claimed by nefarious political actors. But to make this claim is to disregard the vast variation within runic systems, as well as the fact that white supremacists only use a small selection of runes with any consistency. So, to talk about runes in general in relation to the white far right is homogenizing and misleading.
While there are instances of particular groups using a full runic alphabet as a kind of code, this is best understood as an act of appropriation rather than an accurate reflection of runes’ historical use or contemporary meanings. The National Socialist Underground in Germany, for instance, confounded police for years by writing messages in runes. This is profoundly embarrassing for the police, because the internet exists, and moreover indicates a rough knowledge of the sound each rune makes but not much else (and many of these sounds don’t correspond well with modern German). To view this as a sign of complete and irreversible co-optation of runes by the white far right would be reductive.
There is also, I think, a misunderstanding of the wider uses of runes in magical and/or spiritual communities throughout Europe and North America. Those writing about the use of runes by white supremacists often place this within the wider adoption of a Viking mythos, worship of Old Norse gods, and exaltation of an imagined “Aryan” culture rooted in pre-Christian Germany and Scandinavia. The “not all paganism is racist” framing tends to turn, accordingly, toward practitioners of universalist Ásatrú (worship of the Old Norse pantheon, including deities like Odin, Freyja, and Thor, that openly accepts believers of all races) and other anti-racist practitioners of religions falling under the collective banner of Heathenism.
This is not inaccurate, per se, but it’s an incomplete understanding of who uses runes. I know plenty of witches and pagans who would not identify as Heathen or Ásatrúar[5]—and who indeed never work with any of the old Norse deities—and who use runes for divination, either occasionally or regularly. For some, runes are a gateway to more complex methods of divination like tarot: without the layers of visual interpretation involved in every tarot card, runes come with fewer possible meanings to learn. For others, present company included, runes can be a way to connect with symbols used by one’s ancestors, which in itself is not a racist or nationalistic practice. As sociolinguist Adam Dahmer writes, “runes themselves are not racist unless wielded with racist intent.” I’ll unpack some of this discussion of intention below, as I do think practitioners bear some responsibility to understand the connotations some observers will attach to specific runes. Information, again, helps us avoid being misinterpreted.
My plea to researchers is to not write about runes as if they were a monolith. While the statement “white supremacist rally-goers displayed runes” is not inaccurate, it is about as helpful as the statement “white supremacist rally-goers displayed symbols”—a sentence which would never exist without a follow-up “such as” clause. Teaching audiences that runes comprise multiple writing and symbolic systems, and that they predate contemporary white supremacy by centuries, properly situates the misappropriation of these tools by white supremacists without denying the connotations now deeply attached to a handful of individual runes.
For magical practitioners
What you probably know: runes are a set of symbols associated most strongly with old Norse culture (though as discussed above, this is only partially accurate) that can be used for divination. If you bought a rune set, it’s probably Elder Futhark. This is the set I painted for myself on a collection of stones from a hillside in Wales, brought home, wiped dry, and consecrated over a candle flame.
To divine, one learns the symbolic associations of each rune, which depending on one’s proclivities can consist of symbols found in nature (like an ox or a yew tree), associated Norse gods or goddesses, and/or more involved messages about one’s goals, career, personal growth, and so on. In my work so far, I’ve found runes to be more positive than tarot, largely because the stories are simpler, though I’m sure a more experienced rune-caster would correct me. One can ask a question and pull a single rune to seek guidance, scatter the entire rune set over a casting board or cloth and read those that fall face up, or do a “spread” similar to tarot. Usual advice surrounding grounding and intention-setting applies.
And let’s talk about intention, albeit not quite in the way that witches usually use the term. There is nothing innately problematic about casting runes for divination. Runes help us tell stories via motifs from the natural world, and if those stories are racist, that speaks to the diviner, not the tool itself. Conversely, some practitioners may connect with the meaning of an individual rune and want to wear that rune as a talisman—say, as a necklace, or in more committed cases, as a tattoo. This practice, too, may be perfectly fine. But here is where I’d urge some caution. The intention behind wearing a rune does not change how others may perceive that rune—and while I would argue it is no single practitioner’s responsibility to hand out “Runes 101” leaflets to suspicious bystanders, certain runes do carry white supremacist connotations that could be interpreted as dogwhistles or “winks” to the white far right.
To be clear: this is not me telling you not to wear runes. But if you’re going to, you should be aware of what a small handful of specific runes can signal to people with whom I hope you have no desire to be involved, and so you should be prepared to confront these people if they approach you online or in-person. (And for what it’s worth, I would personally have trouble reconciling any display of Sól in isolation, given how deeply connected it is Nazi Germany.)
Here are five Elder and Younger Futhark runes used widely by white supremacists, their associations with Nazism, and what they actually mean.
Sól ᛋ
Sól is part of the Younger Futhark, where it makes an “s” sound and represents the sun (or, more literally, the sun goddess Sól). In white supremacist circles, it’s referred to as the sig-rune, nodding to the German for “victory” (sieg). Technically it comes from a set of runes developed by Austrian proto-Nazi Guido von List called the Armanen runes, which are a perverted version of Younger Futhark. Probably the most infamous of the Nazi runes, Sól was co-opted for use as part of the logo for Nazi paramilitary organization the SS. Given its widespread and longstanding use as a Nazi symbol, it is difficult to justify displaying this rune in isolation, and those who do so today are typically trying to get around outright bans on the swastika and the like.
Tyr ᛏ
Tyr is a Younger Futhark rune that makes a “t” sound. The character is identical in Elder Futhark, where it is called Tiwaz. The rune represents courage and victory, and so it makes some sense why it might be used as a military symbol—and, indeed, SS brownshirts in Nazi Germany did use it this way. Tyr might also appeal to white supremacist adherents of Odinism because of its association with the god Tyr, who in some traditions is the son of Odin. (Odin’s rune, of course, is infamously blank, which has the fortunate side effect of making it a really bad white supremacist logo.) This is, admittedly, my speculation.
Othala ᛟ
Othala is from Elder Futhark and is sometimes also transliterated as odal. It makes an “o” sound and represents inheritance, focus, and the ancestors. Deity-wise, it’s connected to Odin. In Nazi symbology, this connection to one’s ancestors gets twisted into a literal “blood and soil” meaning to reference the supposed purity of the Aryan race. It was also used as a symbol of the Hitler Youth.
Maðr ᛉ
The next two runes are a pair of Younger Futhark characters. Maðr makes an “m” sound and signifies man (in the human sense, not the masculine sense, although probably to some extent the masculine sense). The same symbol appears in Elder Futhark as Algiz, making a “z” sound and signifying antlers and the forest: it offers protection, vision, and well-considered risk. Witches and pagans employing the Algiz rune are sometimes erroneously assumed to be using Maðr, so extra care in explaining Elder vs. Younger Futhark is needed here. White supremacists may refer to Maðr as the rune of life and definitely take “man” in the hypermasculine sense. It is the symbol of the American Nazi Party and so carries specific connotations in the US that are weaker, though not absent, in Europe.
Yr ᛦ
The inverse of Maðr, Yr is the rune of death. It is the evolution of the Algiz rune from Elder to Younger Futhark, which in and of itself is interesting. Yr makes an “R” sound and represents the underworld and the yew tree, the latter being linked to death in symbology because it is highly poisonous. Its specific connection to Algiz and the life/death duality is yet again a product of those damn Austrian proto-Nazis. Yr was used frequently to mark the tombs of SS soldiers, and scholars seem to agree that this is indeed a practice without a historical precedent in Germanic or Scandinavian cultures, so maybe don’t go using it on graves or anything like that.
Takeaways
I’ll be honest: I turn to my tarot deck far more often than I do my rune bag. I love a good narrative, and I find richer narratives in the detailed imagery of the tarot. And, though I selected my main deck because I resonated deeply with its themes and roots in the US Midwest, there is a different kind of power that comes from divination tools I made myself. When I read tarot, I ask the deck to connect me with the energy of the earth. With my runes of stone, I don’t have to do that. The earth is literally already there, in the palm of my hand.[6]
Having taken the time to research white supremacist appropriation of runes, I also feel much more confident that I won’t inadvertently telegraph some sort of Nazi meaning to folks around me. I don’t think I would ever wear a single rune as jewelry, for example, though with time I might come to connect with particular runes, so I’ll leave this standpoint open for revision. (I know I do connect strongly with the symbolism of particular tarot cards, for instance, and I would consider displaying these on their own.) Regardless, I would personally not feel comfortable displaying any of the five runes described in detail above. I’ve spent too much time studying white supremacy to feel like my knowledge of the actual meaning of these runes outweighs how others could perceive them. And, I know I need not fear these perceptions in the case of all runes. Blanket aversion to such a complex collection of systems makes no sense and isn’t necessary besides.
As with most things, the takeaway is: do your research. And if you can, do your research with communities who know something about the thing you’re studying. Too often I see researchers of the white far right lump together New Age influencers and all varieties of witchcraft and use “neopagan” as a synonym for all of these, which is so woefully inaccurate as to be willfully ignorant. It’s also ignorant to paper over the incredible diversity of practitioners, who range all the way from Indigenous land activists to incredibly dangerous hacks.[7] You wouldn’t treat the far right as a monolith; extend those participating in traditions and practices unfamiliar to you the same consideration.
For a different segment of my audience: a friend of mine is making his own tarot deck. It’s taking him ages because he’s being really mindful of how he thinks and learns about each motif. (Yet another testament to doing your research.) I am at once in awe of him and completely turned off of the idea of doing something similar, thanks to a combination of being intimidated and possessing the visual art sensibilities of a mountain goat. But now, having painted my own runes, I think I can understand the impulse to imbue a representation so fundamentally with your own energy. If you can, paint or carve runes; make a pendulum; craft a deck of cards; create your own entirely unique tool. Creating with your own hands will connect you to your practice in a different way. It has for me.
[1] Vikings did, of course, use runes, but the one-to-one mapping between Vikings and runes in popular culture is an oversimplification. As we’ll discuss, “runes” refers to a wide array of alphabets in use throughout Northern Europe over a millennium.
[2] Followers of Heathen faiths may also find bits of it useful, though as I’m not part of that community I don’t claim to speak to it directly, and I can’t say much about the religious use of runes.
[3] It’s disingenuous to separate this interest in the occult from European colonialism, especially considering the fascination of white Victorian England with ancient Egypt and “the Orient” at a time when England et al. were stealing Egyptian and other Arab artifacts and alternately fetishizing and demonizing cultures viewed as non-white. Still, this does not make contemporary interest in witchcraft and/or spiritualism inherently connected to Victorian occultism, as the range of beliefs and practices is far wider than that and for many stems from a desire to investigate one’s own cultural and/or ancestral traditions.
[4] It is, of course, foolhardy to try to apply logic to the Austrian mystic and white supremacist who created his own faux set of runes on which much Nazi symbology is based. His whole nonsense is the subject for another post—but if you’re looking for any sort of consistency, it’s in that weird racist perversion of Younger Futhark.
[5] Note that some followers of Heathen faiths (Norse paganism, etc.) prefer the term “Heathen” to “Ásatrúar” because of the explicit appropriation of the term Ásatrú by some white supremacists. “Folkish” Ásatrú, for example, is only open to those who can trace their ancestry to Northern Europe (and are white). There is variation in preferences for terminology in the US vs. Europe as well. As with any identifier, it is best to ask. More info here.
[6] One could quibble that tarot cards are made out of paper, which is processed wood pulp, which is a tree, which is also of the earth. As the number of commas in that sentence makes clear, the connection is far less immediate.
[7] To be blunt: take your medicine, get vaccinated, and stop fucking smudging with white sage if you’re not Indigenous.