Rune Charm and Vegvisir

Types of Rune Charm magic

Inscriptions

Today, many people take written language for granted and use runes as an alphabet without really understanding the magical importance of doing so. When you write a word in runes, it empowers that word. The Norse would often finish inscriptions with the statement, "So-and-so wrote this", or "So-and-so made me". This was a way of magically connecting the writer or carver of the runes with what they had just written. For example, there was a bone plate found in Derbyshire which bears an inscription that reads, "God will preserve the honour of Hadda because he wrote this". Thus, the very act of writing something in runes is a spell in itself, bringing the statement into concrete reality.

Rune Scripts

Another way of using the runes for magic is to write out rune rows, or rune scripts. These are type of shorthand spell, made up of a sequence of two or more runes. For example, if you wanted to create a rune row to help enhance your psychic abilities, you might incorporate laguz/water (relating to the subconscious and mysteries), perth/dice-cup (for divination and magic), ansuz/Odin (the God of the runes), and kenaz/torch (for inspiration).

Bindrunes

A bindrune consists of two or more runes that have been superimposed or joined together in some way. Occasionally, runes like fehu, raiðo or wunjo would be joined at the base of their "stems", forming a wheel. Other times, runes would be joined side by side, or combined into a single rune. This latter method is the most popular today. Historically, bindrunes were used as "contractions" in an inscription, either to save space or to reduce the number of runes in the inscription to a more magically auspicious total. Today they are commonly used in rune magic by themselves to create a magical sigel that will encompass several runes at once.

Additional runes will often appear when creating a bindrune, and these can contribute to or detract from the purpose. However, a rune is only truly present if you consciously include it by tracing its shape. If you can avoid including a conflicting rune by changing the configuration, then by all means do so, but you shouldn't worry about it too much.

Vegvísir

As is often the case, some symbols are more commonly known than others within the iconography of any religion or magical tradition, and in this regards the Northern Tradition is no different. The Vegvísir, is a magical symbol of navigation and may also be connected with actual compasses. The Vegvísir literally means in Icelandic ‘guidepost’ and is sometimes colloquially called today a Runic or Viking Compass.

Vegvísir also can be found in the late 17th century Icelandic manuscript known as the Galdrabok (it’s essentially a grimoire). Here it is a symbol of magic. We know from the manuscript that the symbol would be inscribed in blood on the forehead of the person using the charm so that they will not become lost and find their way. This is similar in nature to other symbols or magical practices we see described in the lore written at the time of the Christian conversion. The Aegishjalmr, which I’ve written on previously, is another symbol from a similar magical practice.

I’ve heard that some folks more familiar with the nuances of navigation have studied the symbol and determined that what appears to be a bunch of weird shapes and squiggles, appear to correspond to methods of navigational measurement. At least it’s quite easy to see the directional markings of N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW.

We do have two examples of a navigational Viking Sun Compass in our known archaeological record. While the items from the archaeological record don’t look like the magical symbol, somehow to me at least it still seems to be a ‘spiritual’ cousin. The archaelogical sun compass has 32 marks. The first was discovered in Greenland (1947), and the second was discovered in Poland (2000). Both date to around 1000, which is in the middle of the Viking Age (800-1300)—the time of contention and conversion between the indigenous religion and the encroaching Christianity.

Based on the seafaring accounts found in the sagas, we learn in Hrafn’s Saga that the Vikings navigated by using a ‘sunstone’. When we combine this knowledge with the actual archaeological relics… we discover an effective means of navigation. Scientists/scholars today theorize that the ‘sunstones’ mentioned in the sagas was most likely stones native to the territories of the Vikings (such as cordierite and optical calcite), which had polarizing effects. This meant that even on a cloudy or foggy day, that if they could just get a bit of a patch of clear sky at the appropriate zenith… the light would reflect through these stones when set against the compass… and show the way.

The compasses do have a margin of error and were not necessarily precise to the standards we think of today. But the Vikings most likely would have used the compass as a tool combined with other sources of information. While at this time any possible connection between the magical symbol and the actual sun compasses are tenuous at best… in a society that clearly was known as travelers who reached as far west as North America, as far east as parts of Asia, and reached into the Middle East being able to orient oneself and find the way would have been valued and important.

Today the symbol is only used by a small minority of those in the Northern Tradition, and is usually worn as a magical charm, and not used as a religiously significant symbol. Some people wear an amulet of it, have it tattooed onto them, I’ve heard of a soldier marking it on the inside of his helmet, and of someone else who cut out their own vinyl decal of it for their car.

Why is Vegvísir used as symbol of Galdrtanz?

As you seen in previous text, that Vegvisir is symbol who represent compass, or way of direction and direction is the way where we could or supposed to move. Galdrtanz is the way of Rune Dance and Dance is artistically, spiritual and divine way of moving, movement. According to that conclusion, we accept Vegvisir as symbol of rune dance a well, case dance is movement, Vegvisir is one who will teach us in which direction to dance…