What about the empty rune? How (and if) to read it – –

The Void Rune is an odd appendage to most runestone sets. This silent little tile is called the “Wyrd rune” or “Odin’s rune” and is a much discussed subject among rune readers.

The 24 Elder Futhark runes are – among other things – an archaic alphabet and divination system. Each character has three major levels of meaning: a phonetic sound, a mundane object or concept, and a spiritual/esoteric idea. The empty rune is no exception to this scheme. It represents respectively: the sound of silence (phonetic), the absence of things (material) and the unknown/unknowable hand of fate (summary). Therefore it is associated with wyrdthe Norse word for destiny.

The original rune master, the god Odin, received the knowledge of the runes and thus went from ignorance to wisdom. The empty rune – the absence of runes – invites the student to reflect on the experience of not knowing. It is also known as Odin’s Rune in honor of the All-Father and Patron of Runecraft.

The empty rune is silence, the zero, the emptiness of infinite possibilities. The space between words, the breath before speaking. Its Tarot equivalent is the Fool – the sense of empty space, the Hebrew letter Aleph, the most primordial form of the element Air.

As we shall see shortly, the divinatory tone of the empty rune is ambiguous. No one can really agree on whether or not the empty rune is a “good” omen. (Or even when heard in readings.) It can represent the darkness of ignorance, the dark hidden workings of fate – or the eternal wordless hum, the AUM of the complete and enlightened universe.

What does the empty rune mean?

When an empty rune appears in a reading, it indicates that there has been some complication with your divination. It indicates that your question may be worded incorrectly, or the answer you are looking for may not be apparent (or already known to your deepest intuition). It is an invitation to meditate and wait. (Or — let’s face it — toss the sucker back into the sack and draw another tile.)

Here’s what a few different rune books have to say about reading the empty rune:

This is the rune of total trust and should be seen as exciting evidence of your most immediate contact with your own true destiny, which keeps rising like the phoenix from the ashes of what we call destiny. The appearance of this rune can portend death. But this death is usually symbolic and can relate to any part of your life as you are living it now. —The Book of Runes: A Guide to the Use of an Ancient Oracle (1983) by Ralph Blum

If this rune appears in your reading, rest assured that something unexpected is about to happen. Whether that something is positive or negative depends on what you justify based on your past behavior. Its meaning is best interpreted through the way it relates to its neighbors. —A Practical Guide to the Runes: Their Use in Divination and Magic (1989) by Lisa Peschel

When we cast this rune, it indicates to us that our own spiritual development is progressing. It is also a reminder that our own knowledge is greater and more powerful than we think. —Pagan Portals: Runes (2013) by Kylie Holmes

The closest approximation to this rune is the Wheel of Fortune in the Tarot, which simply indicates that some kind of change is about to happen, but whether it’s a change for better or for worse depends on the rest of the reading. —Just runes (2006) by Kim Farnell

Aetters become aett

There are many readers who think that the empty rune should only keep mom. Her objects fall into two main categories: Functional and Historical. Let’s tackle the functional issues of the empty rune:

First off, there are 24 runes in the Elder Futhark. 24 runes – not 23 and not 25. Other runic alphabets have a different number of characters, but it doesn’t matter. Adding an extra tile, some say, disrupts the mathematical perfection of the system. The number 24 goes well with the four seasons, twelve signs of the zodiac, four classical elements, eight pagan festivals, 24 Greek letters, and various other systems that have become intertwined with the runes over time.

The 24 runes are traditionally divided into three groups of eight (the better). Every group (aett) is ruled by one of the Norse gods – the first by Freyr, the second by Hagal, and the third by Tyr. Twenty-five is obviously not divisible by 8. This leaves the empty rune without the usual equivalents.

Of course, proponents of the empty rune will say that this is exactly how it should be. The empty rune floats, as moorless and anachronistic as a steampunk airship soaring over the ancient fjords.

Other problems? There are already a rune representing fate, the unknown and the undisclosed: Perthro. Many rune scholars believe that Perthro (also spelled Pertho, Peorth, or Parz) likely represented a dice cup from which Norse players would cast lots. Archaeologists have even found a Perthro inscription on dice cups!

The enclosed form of Perthro is like a dark cavern from which our destiny erupts. It is an apt metaphor for all the undisclosed causes and effects colliding in a dark place – an unknown or perhaps as yet unwritten destiny.

To me, this is the best argument against the empty rune – reading the runes is complex enough without that two Tiles that represent ambiguity and flow. Leave the empty rune alone, people will say, and let Perthro whisper of the Wyrd.

History of the empty rune

It is not clear whether the runemaster of old would have understood the meaning of an empty rune. Rune tales revolved around what could be seen and experienced – the cattle, the hearth fire, the bravery of the warrior. The eloquent nothingness concept would have been difficult to sell.

The Norse had no numeric zero or any sign that represented nothing. Runic inscriptions left no space between words – the words on runestones all converge or are occasionally separated by periods. There is certainly no reference to an empty rune in many centuries of early literature on the runes.

So if it’s not part of the Norse tradition then where does the empty rune come from? Most rune scholars attribute credit (or blame) directly to author Ralph Blum, who wrote his Book of Runes 1983. This was the first textual mention of the empty rune. He was also the first to associate the empty rune with Odin, the most powerful of the Norse gods.

Blum claimed that the idea for the empty rune came from a set of runestones he bought in England in the 1970s. It’s possible, some say, that this empty tile should be used as a replacement for a lost tile.

As he prepared to write his book, Blum scrapped the traditional (3 x 8 = 24) configuration of the rune system and instead arranged his runes in a 5×5 grid after random casting. The empty tile happened to fall in the last position of its grid, which he interpreted as an accident of great importance: a new rune for the New Age.

Blum’s books have combined the dense and scholarly lore of the runes into an accessible list of spiritual principles. Then he ran them through a filter of trendy modalities like astrology, the I Ching and shamanic quest.

flowers Book of Runes was a bestseller in several editions. Its commercial success was due in part to the new age and self-help publishing boom of the 1980s, and the fact that some editions came packaged with a nifty set of ceramic rune tiles – blank runes included, of course. Among people who use runes casually in divination, it was often the first and only rune book on the bookshelf.

The improvisations in The Book of Runes caused outrage among rune traditionalists, and the empty rune became a focal point of controversy. Norse Reconstructionists accused Blum (and later New Age writers) of trivializing the runes and adopting their legacy.

But the damage – if it was indeed damage – was already done. A physical blank rune is included in almost every commercially manufactured rune set. The concept of the empty rune is mentioned, at least in passing, in virtually every book on runes published since 1983, although it probably dates as recently as the 1970s.

Having considered the blank runes as a questionable pedigree, we now come to the even more thorny question of whether or not you should be using them. There is a lot at stake here. The runes aren’t always kind to dilettantes and posers. Their abuse can result in horrifying and incomprehensible readings, or perhaps your family’s name being whispered with shame in the halls of Valhalla.

But should you use the empty rune or not?

For such a small thing, the empty rune gathers a lot of hatred. Some of the strongest objections come from professional readers who are under a lot of pressure to provide actionable answers to questions. The empty rune is risky. Drawing can open up the session for further contemplation and conversation…or just suck all the air out of a reading.

Someone pays you for a reading, confides in you their deeply personal questions, and you draw a tile that effectively says, “Nah nah nah, can’t tell you!” Pooh. Then there’s that awkward moment of flipping the empty rune two or three times after casting just to make sure it’s really empty. Answer slurred, try again later. One can imagine that a psychic who didn’t want to work very hard could fill an entire pocket with blank tiles and dish it out, spreading platitudes about the power of your own choices.

I have known readers who accept the rune in their personal practice but remove it when reading for clients. Rune teachers often advise their students to use their intuition when deciding whether to accept or reject the empty rune. After all, it is not heresy to adapt an oracle to one’s needs. Languages ​​and systems evolve. I’m willing to entertain the thought that the runes might not have been ready when they were given to Odin, just as Odin himself was unable to foresee the entire fate of the world.

But…