Viking Age Norway did not write with the 24 runes you find all over the internet. It wrote with sixteen, shown here in the long-branch variant,with sound value, meaning and the verse from the Norwegian rune poem.
16 runes
The runes were never one alphabet, but several. From the oldest signs around AD 150 to the Vikings’ own runes, they changed in shape, number and use. Here they are in order, oldest first.
Approximate period of each rune row, oldest at the top.
Vikingtiden, ca. 793–1066
The Iron Age · c. 150–793 · Roman Iron Age, Migration Period and Merovingian Period
Runes are several hundred years older than the Vikings. The Elder Futhark, with 24 characters, was in use from around AD 150, and over a long transitional period it became the Younger Futhark.
c. 150–550
Also called Proto-Norse runes or the 24-rune row
The oldest rune row we know has 24 characters, arranged in three groups of eight. The name futhark comes from the first six runes: f, u, þ, a, r and k.
Read more about the Elder Futharkc. 450–1000
Also called the futhorc or Anglo-Frisian runes
A common version with 28 runes. The manuscripts have between 28 and 33.
While the rune row in Scandinavia got shorter, in England it got longer. The Anglo-Saxons and the Frisians added runes for new sounds and ended up with as many as 33 characters.
Read more about Anglo-Saxon runesc. 550–800
Also called late Proto-Norse runes
Faded runes: the eight that were dropped.
Between 500 and 800 the rune row in Scandinavia shrank from 24 to 16 characters. It happened gradually, and in the transitional period old and new forms appear side by side.
Read more about the transitional runes793–1066 · from Lindisfarne to Stamford Bridge
The Younger Futhark, with 16 runes, had taken its final shape by around AD 800, just as the Viking Age began, and it became the rune row of the Viking Age. It was written in several ways: with long branches, with short twigs, without staves, and towards the end in a Norwegian mix.
c. 800–1100
Also called normal runes or Danish runes
Long-branch runes are the Younger Futhark with long branches: each side stroke runs all the way out from the main stave. They are the most legible forms of the sixteen runes, and the ones you most often see on the great runestones.
Read more about Long-branch runesc. 800–1100
Also called stuttruner (short runes), Swedish-Norwegian runes or Rök runes
Highlighted: different from long-branch.
Short-twig runes are the Younger Futhark in simplified form: the twigs are cut short, or stand on only one side of the stave. They were quicker to carve, and were probably the everyday script of Viking Age Sweden and Norway.
Read more about Short-twig runesThe 1000s
Also called Hälsinge runes
Drawn by us after the inscriptions in Hälsingland. No staveless form of ą has been found, so it is left blank. How high a rune sits in the band is part of how it is read.
Staveless runes are the short-twig runes cut down to the bare minimum: the main stave is gone, and only the twigs remain. The result looks more like small strokes than runes.
Read more about Staveless runesc. 950–1100
Also called de eldre norske runene (the older Norwegian runes)
Highlighted: different from long-branch.
As the Viking Age went on, rune carvers in Norway began to mix long-branch and short-twig forms in the same inscription. The mixed runes are the link between the runes of the Viking Age and those of the Middle Ages.
Read more about Mixed runesIt is the opposite of what you would expect. Around AD 700 the Norse language was changing fast, and gained more sounds to keep track of, not fewer. Even so, the writers threw out eight signs.
The result is an alphabet in which one rune has to cover several sounds: ᚴ writes both k and g, ᛏ both t and d. Reading a runic inscription is therefore always partly interpretation: you need to know the language to tell which sound is meant.
Nobody knows for sure why. The most convincing explanation is that the runes were not something you looked up, but something you knew by heart. Sixteen signs can be memorised. Twenty-four is a book.
Most rune material online still uses the 24-sign Elder Futhark, and often adds meanings that were invented in the twentieth century. We stick to the sixteen runes that were actually carved in Norway in the Viking Age, and to what the sources say about them.
This is a free reference on runes and runic inscriptions in Viking Age Scandinavia. There is no account and no password: give your email address once, and you have access to everything.