(this chart
updated in 2005)
Runesigns arose in northern Europe long ago. Legends say a God named Odin discovered runes. He was hanging upside-down from Yggdrasil, the world-tree, when he spied the runes and later brought them to people.
One of their uses is as an oracle. The signs are inscribed on chips of wood or stones and cast for divination. I gave them colors and cast them in random colors. In my chart, I combine the runesigns with African bones from the Zulu bone oracle.
I used Ralph Blum's 25 runes and Ulufudu's 18 bones. Blum's 13 initiation runes are grouped with the 13 numbered bones. I divided the remaining 12 runes into two sets of 6 runes each. I doubled the 5 special bones into basic and prime sets. I added bone 6, called the 'beyond' bone. It has a basic and prime aspect. So then I could match the sets of 6 bones to the sets of 6 runes.
The chart shows a figure shadow-dancing the rune shapes. The captions are the rune/bone meanings. For example, 13 is breakthough for the rune, and harmony for the bone interpretation. 14 is self for the rune and relates to the female bone. 20 is harvest for the rune and relates to the female' bone.
I enjoy the many correspondences I've found between the runes and bones.
Ralph Blum uses 25 runes. These are a classic set of 24 runes and (I quote from his book),
"... plus a later innovation -- the Blank Rune, the Rune that stands for
the Unknowable, for the presence of the Divine in all transactions."
In
June, 1998, a new runesign came to me, bringing my set to 26. It
is the OMlulu Prototet runesign.
