Runes & Other Northern Mysteries

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Velkomið, vinur,(Welcome, friend,)

I honestly do not know the connection. I could research it for you, of course, but you may get your answer more quickly from someone more familiar with the subject than I am. That being said, I will refer you to @thorraborinn, who currently has more experience than I when it comes to matters involving runology. You may choose to directly send him this ask, though he will likely see it and respond since I have tagged him.

My apologies if this answer is not suitable. It would be a shame, though, for me to mislead you in any way due to my own inexperience. Best of luck! If there is anything else that you may need, I am always available.

Coloring runes with blood is mentioned in the sources from time to time. Some examples include chapter 44 of Egils saga (carving runes into a horn containing poison and reddening them with blood from the palm of his hand, causing it to burst; note that Egill also uses runes without also using blood twice elsewhere in the saga); chapter 79 of Grettis saga wherein and old woman carves runes into an uprooted piece of tree, reddens the inscription with blood, sings magic over it, and circles it widdershins in order to bring about Grettir’s death. This also pops up in the Icelandic black book magic tradition wherein certain symbols are supposed to be written with blood, sometimes from a certain artery or other, sometimes from a particular animal. There’s also a word dreyrstafir ‘bloody staves’ occurring in Sólarljóð verse 40 (a Christian poem in Eddic style with some heathen elements, unfortunately usually left out of editions of the Poetic Edda because seriously it’s one of my favorite poems).

“Coloring” or “painting” runes in general, whether with blood (note: no actual traces of blood have ever been found on a runic inscription on the record, though it’s worth mentioning that blood would also not be expected to have been preserved) or something else, definitely happened. Usually runes were made to appear red and a great deal of inscriptions from the middle ages are still red even today which actually is pretty incredible. The word *fāhijan ‘to paint’ occurs in the elder futhark when the painter names himself (e.g. Stainawarijaʀ fāhiðō ‘Stainawarijaʀ (a name) painted’ on the Rö runestone).

Also separately blood is important in divination by lot (blótspánn) in Old Norse sources, which has led people to connect them to rune-casting, although Old Norse lot divination is never actually directly connected to runes. The exact nature of this divination is difficult to reconstruct. It’s connected to sacrifice, and the blood of the sacrifice seems to have been used in divination.

The importance of blood for blessing, especially in religious ceremonies, is repeated throughout the sagas; the blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled over attendants and the temple itself. The word bless actually originally meant something like ‘to make bloody’ (OE blēdsian… that is, “bleed”-sian). This doesn’t connect it directly to runes in particular but does set the context for how blood would have been conceived at the time in general.

I think it’s also worth it to note the poetic correspondence between blood (specifically the blood of Kvasir) and poetry itself. I’m not sure if this correspondence has any value for the topic under discussion but this equivalence between blood and the written or spoken word is fascinating to me.

I’ve gotten a substantial amount of new followers over the past couple months, during a period when I haven’t been posting that much, so I thought it would be instructive to introduce myself a little. Then there’s a bunch of crap about my sort of… inner workings(?) that I haven’t really put into writing before.

My username refers to the folkloric winter spirit Þorri which is also the fourth month of winter in the Old Icelandic calendar. I was born in þorri. Winter, cold, and darkness are my friends. Þorrablót is in a few weeks, by the way.

I have no formal relationship with any particular deity but it’s fair to say I can be associated particularly with Gefjun.

You say “þ” like “th,” btw.

As it says in my “about me” I am an anarchist and I oppose racism, sexism, transphobia, and other forms of oppression. I am a white, straight, cis-male and I am grateful for correction when I use oppressive language (and I do).

I don’t post that often unless you ask me stuff. I can write short things in runes for you but you will probably have to deal with a language lesson along with it.

This is getting long so I’ll clip the rest. Heavier and more boring stuff behind the break.