Runecasting
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Runecasting is the use of Norse rune symbols to predict fortune. The common setup is a collection of twenty-four stones, each carved with a Norse letter. Stones are drawn from the bag, and laid out in a spread, often in a method similar to Tarot cards.
The current practice is a revival of a practice described by the Roman historian Tacitus, who in chapter 10 of his Germania wrote that:
- Auspicia sortesque ut qui maxime observant. Sortium consuetudo simplex: virgam frugiferae arbori decisam in surculos amputant eosque notis quibusdam discretos super candidam vestem temere ac fortuito spargunt; mox, si publice consultetur, sacerdos civitat is, sin privatim, ipse pater familiae precatus deos caelumque suspiciens ter singulos tollit, sublatos secundum impressam ante notam interpretatur.
- They pay great attention to omens and divination. The method is simple: they cut a branch of a fruit tree, and cut it into twigs; these they mark witn certain characters, which they scatter by chance on a white cloth. Then, the priest of the community, if the question regards a public matter, or else the thead of the household, looks to the sky, calls upon the gods, and takes up three twigs in order, and interprets them according to the characters carved on them.
It is impossible to determine from Tacitus whether the runes were the characters used; however, it is likely that some form of the alphabet was already in use among the Germanic tribes in the first century when Tacitus wrote this passage, and the rune names preserved in Germanic cultures suggest that they may have had divinatory meanings.
The runes used are Old Norse, Old English, or Germanic letters, with the exception of the blank (or Fate) rune, which seems to be a modern, Neopagan addition.