Lessons - Tests

Lesson 9 - Tests and Reading

Comprehension Test

What happens to the Ansuz rune in the Frisian runes?
When approximately did the Frisian runes appear?
What general type of change in language necessitated changes to the runes?
How many Frisian runes were there?
How many runes in the Younger Futhark?
What meaning does Uruz have in the Younger Futhark?
What general name is given to the Saxon runic alphabet(s)?
In what languages do we find Rune Poems?
What caused the change in meaning of the runes as reflected in the Old English Rune Poem?
Why did the Elder Futhark not include any rune glyphs with curves or horizontal lines?

Reading

In Bernard King's Way of the Runes, Chapter 4: "The Meanings of the Runes", read the whole of the chapter, ie p 58-79.

Last module we looked at King's rather compact divinatory meanings. Here we are considering his full rune meanings which you will be able to compare and contrast with those provided by Aswynn next lesson.

There are various ways in which to decide rune meanings which include meditation, intuition and reference to the Rune Poems. Since they are our only contemporary source we cannot afford to ignore the Rune Poems. As you can see King relies heavily upon them. However we are studying the Elder Futhark and as we learned, there is no Rune Poem for this. We cannot be sure how much the runes changed in their different incarnations and trying to reconcile the meanings of all three Rune Poems can prove problematic. This means that sometimes King's meanings such as "ulcer" and "fever" for Kenaz (Cen) are a little out of the norm you will read in most books, but they are coherent and well argued and you will have to make up your own mind about them.

Read the translations of the three rune poems which you will find in the Appendices of Ruarik Grimnisson's Rune Rede on pages 276-79 and 282-284

You will notice that in the first of these poems the name of each rune has been translated. By this spage of the course you should have a good enough idea of the order and name of the runes to be able to identify them yourself.

Study the meanings closely. Though all the poems date from much later than the first rune use they are our only clue to what the ancient meanings were. Hence we cannot afford to ignore them. Consider how you will use the Rune Poems in producing your own rune meanings.

Further Exercises

Choose any commonly-used sound and design a rune for it. You need to give careful thought to both the glyph it will have and to the meanings you will give it. The rune should be linked to a Norse god (but not one of those already featured such as Odin, Thor etc). Decide where you will incorporate your new runes. Will you add it to the existing Futhark or replace an existing rune?
Before you can progress further in this course you need to have a good grasp of the first level lessons. Accordingly you should now go to the Rune School examinations link (Student site) and type in the examination code "mod17". This examination has a 65% passmark. Good luck!

You have completed the exercises. Select the following link for the answers
Lesson 9 - Test Answers

Please ensure you mark these exercises before moving on to the next lesson and do not take more than one Lesson a week.

If you have any questions, comments or difficulties with the exercises and you have formally registered with the Rune School please email coursehelp@runeschool.org quoting your student ID number.