Since we’ve finished the Elder Futhark, I thought I’d take a moment to declare my standpoint on the so-called ‘blank rune‘. You may have heard of the ‘blank rune’, the ‘Odin Rune’ or the ‘Wyrd Rune’ in connection with runesets and divination. If you find this in instructions or a book, I would take it as a clue that the author of the material is no authority on runes.

The reason I have for saying this is that there is no historical or archaeological evidence whatsoever that there ever was a blank rune. I’ve researched rune magic extensively and found no mention of a ‘blank’ rune. A blank space was sometimes used in writing. A space, a single dot or two dots (like a colon) might be used to separate symbols or words. But sometimes no break was used and the runes were written in a continuous row.

The blank space never had a meaning of its own. Ralph Blum and his Book of Runes, which was published in the 1980’s, is the source of the ‘blank rune’. If you’ve bought a rune set with a blank rune keep the runeset. You can save the blank one in case you lose one of the others. But I recommend that you use more trustworthy literature than his (or similar) writings.

I would recommend you read the following instead:

Thorsson, Edred: Futhark: A Handbook of Rune Magic. Samuel Weiser Inc. York Beach Maine, 03910, 1984, ISBN 0-87728-548-9.
Thorsson, Edred: Runelore: A Handbook of Esoteric Runology. Samuel Weiser Inc. York Beach Maine, 03910, ISBN 0-87728-667-1.
Aswynn, Freyja: Principles of Runes, Thorsons Publ, 2000, ISBN=0722538839.

Some might wonder why I don’t recommend the book by Andy Baggot and Terry Hewitt (Runes: Casting Runes for Divination, Protection, Healing and Understanding). This is because it was this book that had a picture of an American Elk where there should have been a Moose. I also believe you don’t have to use such a complicated ritual to create and use your runes. (My interpretations for the Elder Futhark are permanently posted here: https://lindaursin.net/library/runes/rune-oracle These will be translated when they’re moved to a database.)

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