Terje Spurkland, Norwegian Runes and Runic Inscriptions (2005) — an honest review
The verdict, briefly. Norwegian Runes and Runic Inscriptions is an accessible academic survey of Scandinavian (chiefly Norwegian) runes and inscriptions — from the Elder Futhark through the Younger row to the medieval runes — built around specific inscriptions and their social context. Its real value for our project is that Spurkland shows runes as everyday literacy — goods tags, ownership marks, business notes, love letters, names — rather than a uniform "secret magical alphabet." That is the strongest factual counter to the esoteric myth. Read it if you want to know what Scandinavians actually wrote with runes, without academic dryness and without esoterica. Skip it if you're after a manual of rune magic or divination — there's none here, and the book itself explains why.
Layering. Below we tag claims:
[historical]— confirmed by inscriptions/philology;[revival, 20th–21st c.]— constructed in modern times;[practice]— what a practitioner prescribes doing;[unproven]— a claimed magical effect with no test of external causation. The particular thing about Spurkland is that his book is almost entirely[historical]— and it's the benchmark against which you can see what in esoterica was constructed later.
What the book is
This is an introduction to Scandinavian runic writing through the Norwegian material — a translation (Betsy van der Hoek) of the Norwegian original I begynnelsen var futhark ("In the beginning was the futhark"). In our own words: the book walks the reader through specific inscriptions — from the oldest Elder-Futhark monuments, through the Viking-Age shift to the 16-rune Younger row, to the medieval runes of Christian Norway — asking at each step not only "how does this read?" but "who carved it, why, and in what social situation?" Published by Boydell Press (2005; ISBN 978-1-84383-186-0 hardback / 978-1-84383-504-2 paperback). The genre is academic but deliberately accessible: Spurkland writes clearly, without jargon, reasoning from the inscription to the conclusion.
The thread that makes the book worth reading for us is its empirical discipline and social eye. Spurkland is a Norwegian runologist (University of Oslo), and he reads inscriptions by what is in them, drawing his conclusions from a body of real material. The medieval Bergen (Bryggen) corpus is especially telling — hundreds of business and everyday notes on wood: debt notes, goods tags, names, messages, including frivolous and amorous ones. This material is the quiet but devastating answer to the romantic image of runes.
What in the book is ancient, and what is a 20th–21st-century invention
For an academic like Spurkland the layer split works differently than for an esoteric book: for him
almost everything is [historical], and the value of the review is showing where later esoterica
built invention on top of thin real material. Below is a summary of common esoteric beliefs and what
the inscriptional evidence, as Spurkland presents it, answers to them.
| Common esoteric belief | What the inscriptions show (Spurkland) | Layer |
|---|---|---|
| "Runes are first of all secret magical symbols of power" | Runes are a writing system; the bulk of inscriptions are names, ownership marks, business and everyday records, gravestones | [historical] |
| "Scandinavians used runes mostly for spells" | Everyday literacy: the Bergen/Bryggen corpus — debt notes, trade tags, love and frivolous notes on wood | [historical] |
| "Each rune carries a fixed secret meaning" | A rune's meaning is first of all phonetic (a letter); the rune names are known from late rune poems, and several meanings are disputed or unrecovered | [historical] |
| "The 'magical' inscriptions (alu, laukaz) prove secret magic" | Formula-words on early monuments/bracteates do exist [historical], but their sense and function are disputed; epigraphists often call "magical" what they can't otherwise read |
[unproven] |
| "The shift to the Younger Futhark was a loss of sacred knowledge" | The reduction to 16 runes (Viking Age) is a linguistic and practical change in writing, not a loss of secret doctrine | [historical] |
| "Modern divinatory rune meanings just are the ancient meanings" | The esoteric meanings and spreads are a 20th–21st-c. revival (von List, Thorsson, Blum), not a Scandinavian inheritance | [revival, 20th–21st c.] |
The key point: Spurkland's book is the [historical] benchmark against which you can see what in
esoterica is [revival, 20th–21st c.]. He writes almost nothing about modern rune magic — he simply
restores the historical layer (and especially the everyday layer) so cleanly that the new construction
shows up by contrast.
Strengths
- Accessibility without loss of rigour. A rare combination: academic level and scholarly honesty in clear, readable prose. A good first academic bridge between linguistics and the actual inscriptional material.
- Grounded in inscriptions and social context. Spurkland reasons from a specific monument to a conclusion; the Bergen corpus gives a living picture of rune literacy as part of ordinary life, not a secret cult.
- The strongest factual counter to the esoteric myth. Where pop literature sees a "magical alphabet
of power," the inscriptions show trade, names, love and daily life. For a project that holds the
"history ↔ esoterica" line, this is a model
[historical]source — cf. rune magic from the inscriptions. - Coverage of the whole Scandinavian arc. Elder → Younger → medieval runes in one book, with the transitions and their causes — cf. the origin of the futhark and the major inscriptions.
Weaknesses and cautions
- It is not a practice manual. Anyone after "how to read runes for divination" or how to build runescripts will find nothing here (rightly so), but the expectation should be set in advance.
- A regional focus — Norway/Scandinavia. The Anglo-Saxon futhorc, the continental and Turkic rows lie outside its scope; for the whole picture you need other works (for the Anglo-Saxons, Page).
- The "magical" inscriptions are handled soberly. Anyone expecting an elaborate theory of alu / laukaz will get a cautious minimum — that's scholarly honesty (the sense of the formulas is disputed), not a gap. For more, see rune magic from the inscriptions.
- Diverging interpretations. On a number of readings and datings there is no scholarly consensus; these are different interpretations, not "final truth" — cross-check with the reconstructed rune names.
Should you read Spurkland's Norwegian Runes — and who it's for
Yes — if you want the historical truth about Scandinavian runes: what was actually carved on wood and stone, how runes lived in trade, law and daily life, how the row changed from the Elder to the Younger Futhark. It's one of the most accessible entries into evidential runology and the best argument against the "runes = secret magic" myth.
No — if you want a practical manual of rune magic or divination, or confirmation that esoteric systems are ancient. Spurkland gives none of that — on the contrary, his material shows that everyday writing was the norm. For practice, read the esoteric authors (but under an honest frame) — our review of Thorsson's Futhark — keeping Spurkland beside them as the academic counterweight.
A practical tip: use Spurkland as a [historical] tuning fork for Scandinavia. When an esoteric book
says "the Vikings wrote spells in runes," check: the bulk of Scandinavian inscriptions are names, tags
and business records, not magic.
Conclusion
Norwegian Runes and Runic Inscriptions is the best accessible entry into the history of Scandinavian runes and a model of sober, inscription-based runology. Its strength is that it shows runes as living everyday writing: trade, law, names, love. It refutes the romantic "secret magical alphabet" not by argument but by material. For our project it's an anchor of the historical layer: against it, you can see what in popular "rune magic" is genuine antiquity and what was invented in the 20th–21st centuries.
Our editorial rating: 4.5 / 5 — high as an academic reference and as a tool for honest layering; a small deduction only for the regional (Scandinavian) focus and the restraint on the "magical" inscriptions, not for quality. (The rating is editorial and honest; we assign it as the reviewer, without inflation.)
FAQ
Is Spurkland's Norwegian Runes about magic or about history?
About history. Norwegian Runes and Runic Inscriptions (2005) is an accessible academic survey of Scandinavian inscriptions, not a manual of magic. More than that, the book's material is a strong argument against the esoteric myth. Spurkland shows that the bulk of Scandinavian inscriptions are explained prosaically (names, ownership marks, business and everyday records, gravestones), and that the medieval Bergen corpus is everyday literacy outright: debt notes, trade tags, love letters. The book is not meant for practice or divination.
Who is Terje Spurkland?
Terje Spurkland is a Norwegian runologist and philologist, for many years a lecturer at the University of Oslo. His book grew out of the Norwegian original I begynnelsen var futhark and is aimed at a general reader without losing academic rigour. His approach is empirical: the meaning and function of an inscription are derived from the material itself and its social context, not from a wish to find a mystery in it.
Did Scandinavians really use runes for magic?
Occasionally and disputably — but not as their main purpose. Some early inscriptions and bracteates carry
formula-words (alu, laukaz and others) whose sense and function are still debated, and epigraphists
often call "magical" what they can't otherwise read — in our tagging that's [unproven]. The bulk of
Scandinavian inscriptions, especially the medieval Bergen/Bryggen corpus, are everyday and business
writing. In other words, runes were first of all a writing system [historical].
What are the Bergen (Bryggen) inscriptions, and why do they matter?
They are hundreds of medieval runic inscriptions on wood found at the Bryggen trading wharf in Bergen, Norway. Among them are debt notes, goods tags, names, business and personal messages, including amorous and frivolous ones. They matter because they show runes as ordinary everyday literacy in the late Middle Ages, rather than a secret magical art — an empirical counterweight to the romantic image of runes.
Where should I start if I want rune history, not magic?
With academic works. For Scandinavia, this Spurkland; for Anglo-Saxon runes, R. I. Page — our review of Page. For the names and their reconstruction, see the reconstructed rune names; for the origin and evolution of the row, the origin of the futhark; for the inscriptions as a source of "magic," rune magic from the inscriptions.
Further
- Our internal summary of the book: Spurkland — Norwegian Runes (2005)
- The academic layer: rune magic from the inscriptions · the major inscriptions · the reconstructed rune names
- Origin and runes in literature: the origin of the futhark · runes in Old Norse literature
- Contrast with esoterica: review of Thorsson's Futhark
Bibliographic data
Terje Spurkland. Norwegian Runes and Runic Inscriptions. — Translated by Betsy van der Hoek. — Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2005. ISBN 978-1-84383-186-0 (hardback) / 978-1-84383-504-2 (paperback). Original: I begynnelsen var futhark (Norwegian). Tier T1 (academic runology). The source for our analysis is the internal summary Spurkland — Norwegian Runes (2005) (metadata from our copy).