Long Branches: Runes of the Younger Futhark

by Ann Groa Sheffield

"Long Branches" places the Younger Futhark - the runes of the Viking Age - in their historical and cultural context. Neither magical guide nor academic treatise, “Long Branches” investigates the meanings of this set of sixteen runes used throughout Scandinavia. Author Ann Gróa Sheffield draws on the stories preserved in the Norse Eddas and sagas together with other evidence from Germanic literature, archaeology and linguistics to explore in depth what each stave may have meant to the people who carved these runes into wood, stone, metal, and bone a thousand years ago.

318 pages, Paperback

First published March 11, 2013

Reviews

[Joseph F. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was an unexpected surprise. The author starts by saying that this is neither a book on the occult, nor a scholarly tome (which are mainly the two types of rune books out there).
She wasn't kidding!
Instead, this book explores the literature, mythology, history and culture of ancient and medieval Scandinavia using the runes as a framework. Each chapter has a rune from the younger futhark, the "alphabet" popular during Viking times, as a starting point. Then, after deciphering the rune's meaning with the help of the runic poems, she proceeds to uncover , using the Eddas, sagas and skaldic poetry, why this concept was so important to the Vikings.
For example, the chapter on the Is rune, ice, discusses the role ice played in a Norseman's mind: how ice can make a convenient bridge when water freezes, and how perhaps the milky way itself might be a type of heavenly ice bridge to the gods. Parts of the year the milky way looks tighter, (icy?), while the other half of the year it looks more disperse; like a river.
Some may argue that this is really not a book on runes at all. Runes were used to make inscriptions on various types of items such as stones and weapons. Rune books usually explore these inscriptions and try to describe them. In other words: what are runes and what were they used for?
This book instead is an exploration of key terms and concepts essential to the Norse mind. Runes perhaps had such names as wealth, giant, god, homeland, and bountiful year, because they were critical in understanding and navigating the dangerous world the Vikings lived in.
This is a must read for lovers of the literature, culture and beliefs of the medieval Scandinavian world.

[Joe Crow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent piece of work, this. Like to see somebody do the same for the Old English rune row. There's that monograph by Stanfield, but that's a bit more focused on his translation of the Poem than analysis of the runes themselves.