RUNA. - This name (r. = secret) designates the alphabetic signs in use among the Germanic tribes before Christianity. They consist of vertical strokes onto which other straight strokes are fitted, very rarely curved ones: they are scratched or carved on stones or various objects; at a later time also painted ("barbara fraxineis pingatur runa tabellis": Venantius Fortunatus, Carmina, VII, 1, 8). They were, at least partially, in use until the 14th century.

The r. are distributed in 3 groups of 8, 24 in all, as many as the letters of the Germanic alphabet, and later rose to 33: they also serve as numerals.

f	u	th	a	r	k	g	w
h	n	i	j	e	p	z	s
t	b	e	m	l	ng	d	o

This grouping is called Juthark from the first six letters of the first row; an apotropaic value was attributed to it. Among the Anglo-Saxons, on the other hand, the letters are grouped according to the Latin alphabet.

Nordic tradition attributes to the r. a magical origin in relation to the magical-mystical meaning of the name and of the numbers they represent.

The tradition is narrated in the Edda. The god Odin is said to have come into possession of the science of the r. and thus to have obtained dominion over all nature by drinking a potion in which, together with honey and the blood of the wise Kvasir, there would have been poured the powder resulting from the abrasion of the signs scratched on all the objects of nature itself.

The most probable hypothesis concerning the graphic origin of the r. (excluding the Greek one through the Goths, and the Latin one) is that those signs reached northern Europe with the alphabetic writing in use among the North-Etruscan populations settled near the great lakes of northern Italy, whence they were able to reach the Rhine basin (Marstrander).

Bibliography8 works

BIBL.: F. Kauffmann, Balder, Mythus und Sage, Strasbourg 1902, pp. 177-203; F. Dornaciff, Das Alphabet in Mystik und Magie, Leipzig-Berlin 1922; C. Marstrander, in Norsk Tidsskr. f. Spragvid., 1 (1928), p. 92 f.; H. Arntz, Handbuch der Runenkunde, Halle 1935; id., Die Runenschrift, ihre Geschichte und ihre Denkmäler, ibid. 1938; id., Die Runen: Urschrift der Menschheit?, in Zeitschr. für deutsche Philologie, 67 (1942), pp. 121-36; J. G. Fevrier, Hist. de l'écriture, Paris 1948, pp. 501-517; C. Mastrelli, L'Edda, Florence 1951.

Nicola Turchi

@incollection{ec10_runa, author = {Turchi, Nicola}, title = {Runa}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {X}, pages = {1444--1445}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1953}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/runa} }

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