Anglo-Saxon runes
Anglo-Saxon runes or Anglo-Frisian runes are runes that were used by the Anglo-Saxons and Medieval Frisians (collectively called Anglo-Frisians) as an alphabet in their native writing system, recording both Old English and Old Frisian (Old English: rūna, ᚱᚢᚾᚪ, "rune"). Today, the characters are known collectively as the futhorc (ᚠᚢᚦᚩᚱᚳ, fuþorc) from the sound values of the first six runes. The futhorc was a development from the older co-Germanic 24-character runic alphabet, known today as Elder Futhark, expanding to 28-characters in its older form and up to 34-characters in its younger form. In contemporary Scandinavia, the Older Futhark developed into a shorter 16-character alphabet, today simply called Younger Futhark.
Futhorc
ᚠᚢᚦᚩᚱᚳ
5th through 11th centuries
Use of the Anglo-Frisian runes is likely to have started in the 5th century onward and they continued to see use into the High Middle Ages. They were later accompanied and eventually overtaken by the Old English Latin alphabet introduced to Anglo-Saxon England by missionaries. Futhorc runes were no longer in common use by the eleventh century, but MS Oxford St John's College 17 indicates that fairly accurate understanding of them persisted into at least the twelfth century.
Usage and culture[edit]
A rune in Old English could be called a rūnstæf (perhaps meaning something along the lines of "mystery letter" or "whisper letter"), or simply rūn.
Futhorc inscriptions hold diverse styles and contents. Ochre has been detected on at least one English runestone, implying its runes were once painted. Bind runes are common in futhorc (relative to its small corpus), and were seemingly used most often to ensure the runes would fit in a limited space.[11] Futhorc logography is attested to in a few manuscripts. This was done by having a rune stand for its name, or a similar sounding word. In the sole extant manuscript of the poem Beowulf, the ēðel rune was used as a logogram for the word ēðel (meaning "homeland", or "estate").[12] Both the Hackness Stone and Codex Vindobonensis 795 attest to futhorc Cipher runes.[13] In one manuscript (Corpus Christi College, MS 041) a writer seems to have used futhorc runes like Roman numerals, writing ᛉᛁᛁ⁊ᛉᛉᛉᛋᚹᛁᚦᚩᚱ, which likely means "12&30 more".[14]
There is some evidence of futhorc rune magic. The possibly magical alu sequence seems to appear on an urn found at Spong Hill in spiegelrunes (runes whose shapes are mirrored). In a tale from Bede's Ecclesiastical History (written in Latin), a man named Imma cannot be bound by his captors and is asked if he is using "litteras solutorias" (loosening letters) to break his binds. In one Old English translation of the passage, Imma is asked if he is using "drycraft" (magic, druidcraft) or "runestaves" to break his binds.[15] Furthermore, futhorc rings have been found with what appear to be enchanted inscriptions for the stanching of blood.[16]
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